Full text of "Processed World"

PROCESSED
WDRLD 4

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PROCESSED WORLD

SPRING WBE, 155UE U

Talking Heads P- 2

Letters P- 4

No Paid Officials P- 14

Letters From Zona Monetaria P-30

Traces P • 39

DOWNTIME! P- 56

That ®Mrf- Office! P- 63

All of the articles in Processed World reflect the views of
the author and not necessarily the views of other
contributors or editors.

PROCESSED 07QRIO

K J ni B ?r^.ii5

This is the fourth issue of
Processed World, and the begin-
ning of our second year. We are
delighted and amazed at the depth
and breadth of response to the
magazine, particularly since the
new year. Our letters section has
grown again — keep 'em coming!

This issue 's lead article ' 'No Paid
Officials" brings to light a little
known piece of recent San Francisco
labor history. The story of the Social
Service Employees Union offers us
a look at a group of office workers
who broke with traditional trade
union organization and discovered
new tactics and strategies. Interest-
ingly, the same SEIU Local 400 that
the SSEU broke away from in 1966,
has recently become the prime
beneficiary of San Francisco's new
"agency shop" law. A brief analy-
sis is presented in the DOWN-
TIME! section.

Con tinuing our ' ' Tales of Toil ' '
series is J. Gulesian, Temporary At
Large. Her "Letters From Zona
Monetaria" scrutinize the norms of
office life in a series of sardonic
reports on the hierarchy and cul-
tural conformism around her. Her
prediction of a new industry to deal
with executive alienation is made
believable by a speech we received
from friends at Arthur Andersen <&
Co. In the speech, excerpted in

DOWNTIME!, a top company exec
pleads with middle managers to be-
lieve their jobs are not meaningless.
Office life is further explored in
Maxine Holz's review of That
Office!, a play by and for clerical
workers, currently showing around
the Bay Area's community theaters.
The play's portrayal of "the secre-
tary" focuses on the complex
emotions brought out by coping
with a subordinate position in the
office hierarchy. Particularly good is
the way in which the play captures
the combination of imagination and
humor as the human response to
office work. The short story
"Traces" flashes us back to
Hungary 1956, and forward again to
Corporate Office Land 1982, in a
juxtaposition of past revolt and
current possibilities.

Throughout our magazine's short
existence we have tried to describe
a different world, a world whose
creation we hope to contribute to.
What kind of world are we talking
about? We have repeatedly said "a
world free from authoritarian domi-
nation and exploitation" or "a
world free from the arbitrary con-
straints of having to make a living in
the money economy." Indeed,

PROCESSED PQflLD

these sentences do describe in
vague terms the world we seek. But
what does it mean in this world to
talk about such sweeping change?

Of course, we do not have nor do
we want to have a blueprint for a
new society, but we do think it vital
to begin imagining how things could
be different. The first step in this
direction is to thoroughly criticize
all existing societies. We don 't want
our goal mistakenly identified with
any variant of "free market" Wes-
tern capitalism or of the "com-
munist" state capitalism of the
USSR, China, Cuba and the rest.

We are interested in a classless,
state-less society, where decisions
about daily life are made by those
most directly affected by the conse-
quences of the decisions. Some-
times this might mean a highly
decentralized, locally-based deci-
sion-making process. Other times,
it might mean a need for decision-

making coordination on a continen-
tal or even a global basis (for
instance, over major ecological
questions or to deal with natural
disasters, shortages, etc.). Either
way, this means a society of free
individuals, capable of coping with
social problems in a direct and
conscious way, beyond present-day
"needs" tike the maintenance of
profits and power structures.

Again, these are fairly general
principles of a new social arrange-
ment. We consider PW an outlet for
more concrete explorations of Uto-
pian ideas and hopes.

We want to begin examining the
problems of getting from here to
there, as well as what we would like
"there" to look like. We hope PW
readers will contribute their
thoughts and experiences to this
quest. Keep sending us your let-
ters, articles, stories, graphics,
drawings, etc.

Processed World — Made in Our Living Rooms

PROCESSED H70BLD

Dear PW:

Hey! We just got a great idea! If
you can't beat them, join them!

We should start up our own
temporary agency and call it RED
ROVERS: (of course, the slogan
could be "Red Rover, Red Rover,
send someone right over") the kick
is that they are quiet fomenters of
revolution, distributing pamphlets,
and generally spreading the Word.

If not a reality, it would make a
great story...

E. — San Francisco

Dear Processed World,

I have come across a small
example of your journal within my
CoEvolution, Winter 81. Enclosed is
my check for $10 for my sub.

I am impressed with what I read
and I'm looking forward to reading
an entire edition.

My situation? I'm not even sure I
know what it is. At present I am a
Systems Software Clerk for a large
oil company. I've been with them a
bit longer than two years. I "enjoy"
my job, it is diversified and keeps
me busy. I do a lot of data entry,
arranging and running reports, and
miscellaneous. My co-workers have
educated me in several systems.
But...

"They" tell me business is the
only decent major (I attend a
community college part-time and
will have my AA by '83 — at last,

PROCESSED (TQRLD

my major being education —
secondary). "They" tell me I should
learn Cobol and Fortran to get
somewhere from where I'm at. I'm
not motivated to. I don't want to be
a Programmer. But if I say that, I
appear ungrateful. Dumb broad in
their eyes. "They" laugh when I
confess my major is education. (But
telling some my major is Philosophy
keeps them quiet and at a distance!)

Big Business is not where I want
to be — with dept. vs. dept.,
manager vs. manager, politics and
high finance. No — that's not for
me. But then I do seem to need the
money. I've been divorced for
nearly six years and I support two
children, 11 and 10, one of whom is
crippled and blind. Can I afford to
drag them off on my dreams and
move to Maryland or Colorado — or
can I afford not to?

I'd like to be involved with
teaching and communication. The
back to basics approach. I want to
be involved in building a society my
kids and I can survive in, have
friends I can trust, and be with

people who can love and allow
others to love them. Those people
seem rare to me. So many seem
frightened by kindness, by love.
Fear is understandable. There are a
lot of confused and violent people to
contend with. But running, hiding,
is not the answer. What is the
answer? Perhaps that is why I am
writing. It seems strange to put this
on paper. Strange to send it off to
people I don't know. But maybe
your ideas can help me. My dream
is to have that BA degree before
1988 — (part-time takes forever!)
Still, that seems like a long time to
just get by. Hopefully, I can get
some educating experience by
teaching at my church once a week.
Do I have better choices? I hope so.
In any case, I'll be looking
forward to your journal and your
ideas. Thank you for this opportun-
ity to write. Perhaps I will be able to
contribute to Processed World at
some future date.

Sincerely,
L.S. — Parma, Ohio

Model 384200

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Coffee break starts when button is pushed and bell
rings... Break begins for everyone at same time.
Minutes later, bell rings automatically (time adjustable).
Employees return to work immediately. Minutes lost
every day be extra-long coffee breaks steal from your
profits.

From A Reader in Detroit

PROCESSED CTQKLC

Dear L.S.,

All of us at Processed World were
very touched and pleased with your
letter. I think the frustrations and
desires you expressed are wide-
spread — which is partly what
inspired us to publish in the first
place. Our project, in the most
immediate sense, is to help validate
and encourage dissatisfaction with
what this world offers us. The

source of so much difficulty in
"coping" stems more from the
society we live in than from indivi-
dual failure. If people stop blaming
themselves, and stop trying to fit
into the established models, maybe
we can begin acting to change the
whole set-up.

It would be facile and pretentious
to claim that we have "answers" to
the situations of individuals trapped

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in the office world. For one thing, as
long as this society remains based
on profits and the power of corpora-
tions and governments, and as long
as the important decisions that
affect us remain in the hands of
entrenched authorities and bureau-
cracies, the problems of survival
and the difficulties in creating
bonds of trust and friendship can
only be partly and temporarily
resolved. The pressure of earning a
living already limits our choices
considerably.

Aside from being an outlet for our
own creative impulses and desires
to change the world, working toge-
ther on P.W. and related activities
has led to close friendships and to a
sense of community that is so
lacking in most of our lives. Of
course we have plenty of problems
and personal conflicts, and we don't
always live up to our ideals of free
social relationships.

In addition to publishing and
distributing P.W., we try to speak
to people we work with, making
friends and alliances that help
alleviate the time spent at work.
Wherever possible, we provide
support for those who are trying to
challenge the order we live under.
We encourage people to make use
of our resources, contacts and
experience.

Apart from more or less regular
editorial meetings we have begun to
hold a sort of open house at a bar in
the Financial District to meet, talk
and make plans after work. . .
/ hope you enjoy the magazine.
Please keep in touch.

Maxine

HELEN WRITES HOME

Dear Dad,

Why did I do it? Become part of
PW magazine that is. Well, I was
working at BofA, and it was
ultra-beige in spirit and surround-
ings. At this time I entertained a
mild flirtation with local Working
Women aficionados, but their res-
pectability and ''proper channels"
emphasis was tres ennui and a big
yawn besides. So when a kindly
temp worker told me he had heard
reports that crazy people in the
financial district were wearing VDT
heads and shouting in the streets
about office work, and when I ran
into these same people during my
lunch break, I felt, shall we say...
sympathetically inclined.

At first I was misled by the
"professional" appearance of the
magazine and was surprised to
discover that it was put out by a
small group of friends, all of them
office peons like yours truly. My
remaining two months at BofA were
made a little easier by knowing
other people who shared my rage
about selling 40 hours a week to a
place where too often your most
intimate and scintillating compan-
ion is a typewriter. I met people who
questioned office work very deeply
— both in the abstract and at the
eminently practical level of how to
survive in the oh-so-cheery office of
today, while at the same time
striking against it.

You keep waiting, but if my
rebelliousness is just a phase I'm
certainly taking a long time to grow
out of it. I show no signs of reaching
for a steady, prestigious job. I work
for Mr. Big as little as possible. And
when I'm "Mr. Big's Girl" I try to
get the best deal for myself and
steal back my time, creativity, and
self-respect in whatever ways are
possible. PW helps invent more
possibilities.

PROCESSED (PQRLD

Well, that's enough for now Dad.
In my next letter I'll tell you if crime
pays, how much, who's hiring and
how you have to dress for the job.
Send my love to Snoodles, Chopper
and Betsy.

Bye now.

Love, Helen

Greetings—

I read the first two issues of your
journal while visiting Vancouver. I
could identify with personal contra-
dictions of being an intellectual
doing unskilled labor since I have
always done menial manual labor
myself. My current position is as a
laborer on the garbage trucks for
the City of Toronto.

I don't mean to denigrate your
more theoretical insights by discus-
sing the personal contradictions
involved in unskilled labor. Indeed I
found your overall analysis of work
and not-work to concur very much
with my own ideas. But over the 8
months that I worked as a garbage
laborer, I have become much more
aware of the elitism of the left and
their misunderstanding of people
who choose non-careerist survival
options.

My own position is summed up by
paraphrasing the old dictum; "em-
ployment if necessary, but not
necessarily employment." I know
that I have other options, so to
speak, i.e. retraining in computers
or electronics for instance, but I feel
so alienated from this system that I
find it difficult to direct my energy
to increasing the social value of my
skills when the only benefits that I
will receive out of it is security and
the remote possibility that my work
will be more interesting. Otherwise
any benefits certainly go to the

Relaxing at the Highwater family
bungalow.

abstract extraction of surplus value.

Compared to most people that I
know in Toronto, I prefer my
alienation straight. When one does
manual, unskilled labor, there is no
way that one can mystify oneself
into thinking that one is working for
some social or political good. One
works for survival and for some
extra income to fund personal /pol-
itical projects. But the careerists
lose that clarity. Their politics and
their careers begin to dovetail into
each other. They become more
concerned with their resume than
with their lives.

It was interesting to tell
people what I did. People's re-
sponses on hearing that I was a
garbage laborer were readily divis-
ible into two distinct categories.
One was quite pragmatic. They
were interested in how much mo-
ney (good), working conditions, i.e.
outside work, physical work, time
for which we were paid that we
didn't have to work, etc. The second
category of responses was generally
a non-response, usually a polite
silence at best. After a while, I
almost enjoyed maliciously telling
people quite bluntly that I worked
on garbage to shock them a bit.

I had only recently moved to
Toronto and it was quite a different
left to what I had ever been around
before. In the other cities that I had

PROCESSED POniO

lived in, lefties (using the word very
generally) were usually marginals
or workers or some unbalanced
combination. But in Toronto there is
no large culture of marginalization
as there was in Kitchener or
Vancouver. I just had never had
much contact with people who
actually thought in career terms. It
seems so unfortunate that people
direct their energies towards an end
that is not at all in opposition to the
Machine. At best, they work 35
hours a week for the system and ten
hours a week against it.

J.C. — Toronto

Dear P.W. People;

I was given your excellent publi-
cation by a guy in a very fetching
detergent outfit (TIED) on the
corner of Carl and Cole on the 24th
of December. As I didn't have a
dollar on me at the time I promised
to mail it in. So, for once, the check
IS in the mail!

Keep up the f ight-
L.A. — San Francisco

p.s. - I typed this on company
paper, on company overtime and
put it through the official postage
meter. Pay ME shit, will they?

Dear Processed World:

In her dialogue with the person
who participated in the United
Stanford Workers organizing drive,
Maxine Holz counterposes "direct
action" to "unions." As a person
who has also participated in white-

collar union organizing — and who
sympathizes with Processed
World's viewpoint, this immediate-
ly provokes certain questions in my
mind: How can direct action in
opposition to the employers be a
collective activity of a workforce
without mass organization? And
isn't any mass organization which
tries to bring together all the
workers who are prepared to fight
the boss an expression of some kind
of unionism?

Even your "informal groups" can
be an affirmation of unionism.
Imagine that a group of office
workers, who have gotten to know

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each other from working together
for months in the same office,
decide to ask the boss for a raise as
a group. Such an incident of
workers acting in union is an
embryonic form of unionism.

Direct action will only lead people
"to think and act in ways that will
lead to the kinds of changes in

PROCESSED (PQFiLD

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society that have been discussed in
the pages of Processed World" (as
Maxine says), if it is collective. For
sure, it can feel great to sabotage
the company's computer or rip off
supplies from the employer (at
least, I've gotten a sense of satis-
faction from doing it), but isolated
acts of individuals won't bring
workers to an awareness that we
have the potential power to trans-
form the world in the direction of
freedom from domination and
exploitation.

Most people seem pretty skep-
tical about proposals for sweeping
change. It's this feeling that we're
just powerless individuals that will
incline people to reject ideas of
fundamental social change as "un-
realistic." If "the feeble strength of
one" describes your perception of
your situation, you'll tend to strive
for what you can get as an
individual within the system. Col-
lective action can alter the sense of
power that people have because it
changes the real situation from
atomized individuals, cut off from
each other, to the power of worker
solidarity. Especially when the ac-
tion and solidarity among working
people spreads beyond the "nor-
mal" channels and unites — and
brings into active participation —
ever-larger sections of the work-
force — as in the recent movement
in Poland. Movements on that scale
begin to create the sense that it's
"up for grabs" how society is
organized. And if it's up for grabs,
then efforts to change society in a
freer and more humane direction
seem more realistic to people.

It's also during these periods of
heightened struggle and mass par-
ticipation that workers move to take
over more direct control of their
struggles with the employing class
and in the process, create more
independent ways of organizing
their activity, free of top-down

PROTEASED CTQRLC

control. For example, during the
"hot autumn" of 1969 in Italy
workers at the Fiat and Alfa-Romeo
auto plants created mass assem-
blies, organizations of face-to-face
rank-and-file democracy outside the
framework of the hierarchical
unions.

This happens because the top-
down structures of such unions
make them unsuited to carrying
the struggle beyond the "normal"
channels. The officials who run
them, with their bureaucratic con-
cern for avoiding risks to their
organizations (and their status), will
work to contain struggles within the
framework of their longstanding
relationship with the bosses.

Thus, "union" can refer to top-
down structures whose separation
from the rank-and-file invariably
means that they will act to contain
worker protest within bounds ac-
ceptable to the powers-that-be. Or
"union" can refer to a form of
association that is just the rank-and-
file "in union," a mere means to
get together and come to agreement
on common goals and common
action in dealing with the em-
ployers. I think tendencies in both
directions have always been present
in labor history.

Effective direct action means
workers have to get together.
"Informal groups" can be helpful in
developing unity but I think mass
organization on a larger scale is
called for if working people are to
develop the power to make the sort
of social changes you have been
talking about. Besides, "informal-
ity" does not guarantee that an
organization will be self-directed by
the rank-and-file. Informal hier-
archies can develop.

And the kind of "union" that is
run directly through mass meetings
of all the workers is important, not
just because it would be a much
more effective tool in fighting for

what we want right now, but also
because mass organizations of this
kind contain the premises of the
kind of society we want to create "in
embryo" — a society without
bosses, free of the exploitation of
some people by others, a society of
genuinely free and equal humans.

For a world without bosses,
R.L. - SF

RE: HENRY ADAMS'
THE VIRGIN AND THE DYNAMOS
AND THE SENSE OF BEING A
LITTLE BALL BEARING IN THE
GENERATOR THAT POWERS
THE ELECTRIC CHAIR IN A VAST
PROVINCE DEDICATED TO EXE-
CUTION IN THE QUIETEST MAN-
NER POSSIBLE

Dear PROCESSED WORLD:

The other day as I walked into
Standard Oil's 575 Market Street
building, I was suddenly saddened
and felt hopeless. The change was
so abrupt that I had to analyze it.
Now, the metaphor is commonplace
but what it signifies is still signifi-
cant and worth considering in some
depth — that is, the metaphor of
being a small part of a machine.

We talk about the corporate
machinery. We recognize that effi-
ciency is the main aim of a machine.
Heat loss from friction, wear and
eventual breakdown, production of
inferior products, consumption of
fuel — these are the kinds of losses
which technicians seek to minimize
when they work on a machine. Each
part of a machine should perform
the same way each time it is called
upon. There should be no random

PROCESSED H7QRLD

behavior of the parts. The machine
should do what you want it to.

Only a certain kind of person
makes a good machine part. Our
most valuable people are those who
do not make good machine parts.
They produce unexpected and inex-
plicable things like art, theory,
humor, stories — things which
derive their value from their
singularity.

The idea of having a machine
made of humans is not a good idea.
Humans do not perform with regu-
larity, except for those few like
Sergeant Ed Bowers, a redcoat
guard in 575 Market who would do
well behind a desk in a novel by
Franz Kafka, who, in fact, may have
screwed up his courage and walked
right out of a novel by Franz Kafka
into the lobby of 575 Market. My
problems with Mr. Bowers are the
problems of a human being trying to
relate to a cotter pin in a mill wheel.

Faulkner worked on a dynamo
when he was writing AS I LAY
DYING. The hum of the dynamo
was a pleasant sound. He could
think out there, and he only had to
get up every now and then to stoke
the fire. I'm speaking generally,
and I'm really opening my position
wide to criticism by doing so, but
let's just say that the dynamo and
all it stood for still left humans with
a private dignity. Nobody's saying
that back-breaking work is terrific,
and I hope I'm avoiding any
tendency to eulogize physical labor,
much as we might eulogize the lives
of peasants because they are tied to
the ground, or the poverty of blacks
because they have soul. I am saying
that physical labor does not threat-
en to insidiously change the work-
er's mental processes to the "point
that the worker suffers confusion
and is psychologically malleable.

Say a worker has to move a
hundred boxes a day. His body gets
used to moving boxes. He begins to

look like somebody who moves a
hundred boxes a day. Say a worker
has to move a hundred pieces of
information a day. His mind gets
used to moving information. Say the
boxes contain radioactive materials.
The worker suffers not from the
work but from the content of the
stuff he works on. Say the informa-
tion contains the elements of fascist
state control, the ideas of subor-
dination of the individual, submis-
sion to rules, threats. The worker
suffers not from the work, but from
the content of the work. A philo-
sophy gets transmitted like a virus.

What we do not see hurts us. The
transmission of disease long re-
mained a mystery. It is transmitted
by things we do not see.

The long range danger of having
corporations organized like feudal
estates is that you infect a demo-
cratic people with feudal germs. It
is information that shapes people.
The mover of boxes may go home
and read Schopenhauer. The mover
of information is fatigued with the
movement of knowledge, and goes
home to exercise.

Even a mill worker, who works in
a machine (a factory is a large
machine) can at least readily iden-
tify that aspect of his life that is
machine-like, and has the mechan-
ical model before him to rationalize
the routine to which he is subjected.
The machine has to work this way to
make flour, or cloth. But the office
worker is asked to accept routine as
a way in itself. The worker in the
modern bureaucracy is taught to
accept routine as a way of opera-
ting. The rules of the machine thus
take on the character of arbitrary
control rather than justifiable con- >
trol. We learn to submit to authority
as a general rule, and not as a
necessary exception to the rule of
individual freedom.

I work as a temporary at Standard
Oil and I don't have time to work on

PROCESSED (PQRIO

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this letter any more. I realize the
arguments are not fully developed
but this is a first and last draft. And
that's that.

CD. — San Francisco

EEEeeeeeee Processed World #3;

high, y'all, really do hope these
words find you in the very best of
health and determined spirits.

I really enjoyed that, and I've
sent it into the mid-west to a few
friends, one of whommmm works as
a secretary at the Denver mint, so
maybe y'all better get ready for
somestrangelookin' change, hmm...

...Being in prison and now in the
hole (for my attitude) I of course am
deprived of access to resource
material — and am kind of 'out of it'
so far as what's happening and like
that. I've been good for several
weeks in a row, so how do you feel
about communicating more often —
you know, like maybe some of the
flyers laying around or back issues
of the World?

Anyway, I really do like your
style — god! When the young ones
begin to communicate in kind, these
pyramids will... be reconstructed
and mean something more than a
procession into degrees of bondage.
Nevertheless, take care,

Sincerely,

one of the

Rainbow Dragonfly

PROCESSED HTDPiLD

Forgotten History of San Francisco

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The Social Service Employees Union
A Free Union

"Without the historical experience of unions, union meant "the act of
uniting and the harmony, agreement, or concord that results from
such a joining." Significantly, then, the definition of the word
unionize is "to cause to join a union; to make to conform to rules, etc.
of a union." The beauty of the words "harmony, concord, agreement"
are lost in the oppressive implication of the words "to cause to join"
and "to conform to rules, etc." SSEU then, by my experience, is a
union that does not try to unionize.

I am in union with SSEU as a group of individuals. I am not a member
of a union... I feel that there are many people like myself who don't
like listening to the rhetoric, jargon and propaganda of union meetings
and union leaders; who don't like organizations or individuals which
make unilateral decisions that affect the lives of many people."

-Cree Maxson, May 28, 1974
The Rag Times, Vol. 1, No 16

The Social Service Employees Union
of San Francisco appeared in 1966,
just as a widespread revolt was
sweeping the country. While most
people look back at the 60' s as a time
of urban riots, the anti- Vietnam war
movement, hippies, drugs and rock 'n
roll, the SSEU represented a now-for-
gotten convergence of cultural and
worker rebellion.

The SSEU aspired to be completely
democratic. Its activities were carried
on by the workers themselves, on
their own time and sometimes on
work time. Decisions about union
activities were made collectively by
both union and non-union workers.
During its entire existence (between

approximately 1966 and 1976) it had
no paid officials and signed no
contracts with the Welfare Depart-
ment management.

The 200 -I- workers involved in SSEU
at its peak evolved a unique strategy
for improving their own conditions as
workers and for challenging the basic
authoritarian relations that prevailed
(and still prevail) around them. This
strategy depended on the diverse and
wide-open media they created, con-
sisting of uncensored newspapers and
leaflets. It was also based on a
dialogue/confrontation process be-
tween the workers and their mana-
gers, welfare administrators, and
government officials.

PROCESSED 0OAIO

S0&*)

'9*cttl

INTRODUCING THE ALL-NEW

" Bureaucrats In A Briefcase"
Briefcase!

Frank Thompson, Director of Personnel
Management: My wife and I were
vacationing in sunny Acapulco. It was
great... but something was missing. I
yearned for petty details, meaningless
routines, and underlings. Then I re-
membered, my wife had packed my
"Bureaucrats In A Briefcase" brief-
case. Boy, was I relieved!!

William J. P. Richards, Loans and
Securities Officer: One night an old
college chum took me to a wild party
south of Market. Luckily, I didn't forget
my "Bureaucrats In A Briefcase"
briefcase. Just a flip of the latch
unleashed a team of normal American
businessmen! They saved my evening!!

Available from the Nerdley Briefcase Co.

PROCESSED D7QPiLD

THE TRADE UNION
AS AN OBSTACLE

In early 1966, some welfare workers
banded together to defend co-workers
from summary dismissals. They also
began formulating and pressing a
number of grievances. As soon as
workers acted for themselves, how-
ever, their union (Building Service
Employees International Union —
BSEIU - Local 400, which later
changed into SEIU) became as much
an obstacle to their efforts as their
employers.

For example, one of the first
grievances raised was over space.
People worked at desks jammed
together in cramped quarters. When
the welfare workers discovered a
space code in the state regulations
requiring more space-per-worker they
wrote letters of complaint to the Social
Services Commissioner and the State
Dept. of Social Welfare. They gave
them to their union to send, but found
out later that the union hadn't sent
either.

Shortly thereafter the Executive
Secretary of the union chastised the
welfare workers for sending irate
letters to administrators who were his
friends, and with whom he had
political understandings. In response,
the workers demanded to have the
question of union representation put
on the agenda of the next union
meeting.

The next meeting, obviously stacked
by friends of the union's leader who
owed him favors, had the largest
attendance of any in the local's
history. Then-Executive Secretary
John Jeffrey pushed measures through
which dissolved the union's welfare
section, abolished the workers' un-
censored "Dialog' ' newspaper, barred
Dept. of Social Services (DSS) work-
ers' leaflets, and prevented welfare
worker members of the union from
holding meetings at Local 400 's office
or electing any union officers to
represent their section. About fifty of
the affected workers then decided to
start an independent union, which
was named the Social Service Em-
ployees Union (SSEU).

PROCESSED (POP ID

Statement on the Goals and Methods
of Social Service Organization

adopted by the San Francisco SSEU General Membership
Meeting of September 20, 1967

Many of us have the growing feeling that our backs are up against
the wall, that the administration is regulating us out of doing any
meaningful work.

If we are allowed to retain our jobs without being fired, we are forced
to live in degradation. A great fear of losing one's job, of losing the
benefits of the society we live in, vies with a sense of repression all
about us. We must do something about it.
The only method of survival is to fight back. We have rejected
running. There is nowhere to go, and we cannot run fast enough. To
join the dehumanizing Establishment is impossible. It is giving up. on
ourselves. But the individual cannot fight back alone. The only
gratifying and effective method is to fight alongside and to enjoy the
full support of others.

In order to do this, to persuade others to help us and to join them in
helping themselves, we try to make our union a place where people
can come to satisfy their needs. We do not put the organization first.
We do not ask the people who join with us to go beyond the limits they
want to go. We are oriented to our members and to everyone else who
shares our work. All people, union and non-union, are encouraged to
participate in each struggle, and in deciding what the union should
struggle for. Grievances are fought for non-union members, as well as
union members. Our goal is for people to use the union organization in
deciding their own lives.

Business unionism, based on control from above, imitating and
collaborating with management power structures, cannot achieve this.
We do not want to fall into the same traps as the AFL-GIO. Only an
organization that functions as a popular movement of its members,
and is controlled by them, can enable them to survive and develop as
human beings.

People can exert control over their work lives only through
organizing. Through rank-and-file organization social service workers
can make the policy and determine the programs that define their
work. Union organization which is not designed for its members to
operate the union frustrates these efforts.

People are increasingly distrustful of and unwilling to commit
themselves to organizations that do not make popular activity the
center of their attention.

We emphasize that workers must rely on their own mutual efforts,

rather than putting blind faith in a collective bargaining contract.

Contracts can have the effect of trading away workers' ability to

influence their jobs, thus putting an arbitrary ceiling on their

aspirations.

PROCESSED 070ftLO 17

TAKING CONTROL IN R CRBLE JUNGLE

Elevated workstations for supervisors allow eye-to-eye contact with i

tperulors.

The workstations on thefhx>r level are lopped with a glass divider to afford supervisory control.

Persuading people that their well-being can be guaranteed by one or
another politician discourages them from taking charge of their own
lives. We see little change in people's lives when a politician who
"really has the people's interests at heart" replaces another, leaving
the people themselves powerless.

We recognize that social service workers as a lone force will not solve
(heir ultimate problems. In order to develop the strength required for
ultimate solutions, we believe in cooperating, in whatever way
deemed acceptable by our membership, with all groups of people in
the community who have developed popular organizations in their own
areas.

We believe our emancipation is possible only by people controlling
the conditions under which they work and determining the work they
do. We have tried to organize our union so as to encourage and
support each member in his efforts to accomplish this. Organization
should help people develop self-confidence in confronting manage-
ment, gaining dignity in their work, and changing their jobs to their
own satisfaction.

We are not busy building a mighty edifice to wheel and deal in power
politics. We do not buy and sell anything. When we enter into
negotiations with administration, we go for as much as we can get,
and organize support to get it. We have never agreed to give up
anything.

Neither are we simple trade unionists, pursuing only grievances and
economic gains for our members. We are defending ourselves. We are
taking the offensive; we are going for everything we can get. There is
nothing that will satisfy us short of emancipation.

PROCESSED ITOPLD

THE CULTURAL CONTEXT

As U.S. prosperity seemed to be
peaking, and the welfare/warfare
state assumed its present enormous
size and importance in daily life,
millions of people organized them-
selves in active opposition. Rising
expectations and desires quickly ex-
ceeded what daily reality had to offer.
While many focussed their opposi-
tional energies on specific issues, all
kinds of people rejected traditional
roles and attitudes and attempted to
find new ways to live, work, and have
fun.

In San Francisco, long a city with a
bohemian underground and strong
oppositional currents, the "flower
children" or hippie subculture
bloomed and was made famous by the
media-hyped "Summer of Love" in
the Haight-Ashbury district in 1967.
For many people "dropping out" of
the "establishment" meant a rejec-
tion of regular work. Still faced with
the inflexible demands of a money
economy, however, these "dropouts"
often turned to the welfare system for
survival. As counterculturists came
into regular contact with the social
workers of the welfare bureaucracy,
the two groups began sharing ideas
and perspectives.

Very soon, most welfare workers
stopped seeing themselves as repre-
sentatives of the state and the welfare
system. Instead, they counseled wel-
fare recipients on how to best take
advantage of "the system." But more
importantly, they spoke out for them-
selves, as workers trying to be
creative in their work, and helpful to
people in need. They went along
with the widely-held notion within the
SSEU that it was part of a broader
movement for fundamental social
change.

Curiously, though, this notion does
not seem to have prompted the SSEU
to a critique of the welfare system as
such. There is little or no mention in

its publications of the role of the
welfare system in controlling the
poor, nor much reference to the
welfare workers' own role in main-
taining this control. SSEU members
challenged specific injustices both in
their own condition as workers and in
the allocation of benefits to recipients.
But they seldom explicitly condemned
the social relationships that make
welfare necessary. Perhaps th? feel-
ings of self-acceptance and satisfac-
tion gained from helping people get
benefits largely blinded most
SSEUers to the longer-term implica-
tions of their work.

THE DIALOGUE

Basing its activities and tactics on
the needs and desires of individual
workers, the SSEU developed a
strategy of non- violent, incessant
pressure on the welfare hierarchy.
The union eschewed individual acts of
insubordination since these usually
resulted in firings. Instead they
evolved a dialogue/confrontation
process, whereby workers would pur-
sue grievances over nearly anything
that concerned them via direct spoken
or written communication with the
pertinent administrators.

'jitL^i*. i

HOWARD DEWITT AND NORMA JOHNSON
Their dismissals brought the protest

PROCESSED (PQRLO

"The strategy of dialogue is profoundly different from the approach
employed by a hired representative. Lawyers, politicians, professional
negotiators, paid union representatives seem to exclude the grievant
so far as possible from the crucial events that occur in the pursuit of
his or her grievance. They have a vested interest in creating and
maintaining a mystique that only they as professional representatives
are capable of understanding. Then, too, the active displeasure of the
grievant generates a problem in management control. Administration
and professional representatives have a common interest in settling
the grievance in such a way that there is no fundamental change in the
material relations between administration and the grievant. Whatever
is done, is done for the grievant, or to the grievant, but, so far as they
can contrive it, never by the grievant. The grievant's job is to work and
theirs is to decide."

-ORGANIZING: The Art of Self-Defense In

Middle-Class Occupations by Burt Alpert

(1974; Vocations For Social Change; Oakland, CA)

Doggie Diner

PROCESSED UrtJfilO

Humanized Interface?
Yes, I'm All For It!"

The pressure from below created by
the dialogue strategy often led to
administrative hearings with mana-
gers, commissions, city boards of
supervisors, etc. The SSEU demand-
ed and won rights for employees to
appear before such hearings to de-
fend their own interests. They also
won the right to introduce any
evidence or call any witnesses that
they felt would support their case.

Although they pursued numerous
legal avenues of protest, the SSEU
never relied on paid officials to
represent the workers involved. Their
efforts in the arena of commission

hearings and similar settings were
devoted to allowing people to speak
for themselves. And while they would
do their best to get as much as
possible from the authorities in any
given situation, they never signed
away any rights (such as the right to
strike or to take any other actions to
help themselves), nor did they ever
agree to stop trying to gain further
concessions from management.
The following is excerpted from
"The Labor Contract: Nugget or
Noose?", a leaflet put out by Burt
Alpert of the SSEU during the 1968
fight over contract bargaining:

PROCESSED 07QRLD

There are two basic methods of collective bargaining. Both result in
written guarantees: the one, a directive by management; the other a
contract (or "agreement") between management and workers.

THE COLLECTIVE BARGAINING DIRECTIVE: This is the direct
result of grievance action. Workers with a specific grievance, or group
of grievances — whether in a unit, building or entire department,
organize a protest. The protest may take the form of submitting
petitions, balking at doing certain work, forcing management into
conferences, work stoppages, slowdowns, or going on strike.

As a result of the protests, administration negotiates with the
employees, or with a committee chosen by them, and issues a
directive or bulletin establishing improvements.

On their part, the workers agree to nothing: Administration has
published the bulletin, not they. For the moment they may accept
what is granted in the bulletin — but they are free to renew their
protests, in the same or other forms, and to renegotiate at any time.
Out of this there grows a continuous strengthening of employees'
bargaining position and an expansion of their control of the job.

[Through this method] workers gained rights... which... were
recognized by administration in a departmental bulletin that has the
force of law.

THE COLLECTIVE BARGAINING CONTRACT: In this type of
collective bargaining, employees present a list of demands to
administration. If the demands are not met, a strike vote is held. As a
result of the strike vote, or if a strike occurs, a negotiating committee
meets with administration and comes to a tentative agreement. If this
meets with the strikers' approval, a contract is signed for a stipulated
time (one/four years). The workers return to work. The process is
renewed at the end of the contract.

A contract being an agreement, each side gives something. The first
thing that the workers give is the guarantee that they will not take any
strike — or other action during the life of the contract.

If there is a violation of the contract, the matter, as almost universally
agreed to in contracts, is handed over to a compulsory or binding

arbitrator. In most instances, the "arbitrator" rules in favor of the

administration — that there has not been a violation (or the violation is

"beyond the control of" the administration), and that is the end of the

matter.
The only way in which this can be overturned is through grievance
action on the part of the workers. They are forced to do what they
could have done previously without the contract, but in doing it now
they must oppose not only administration, but also The Contract, and
— the union.

The collective bargaining contract may appear attractive,
particularly to workers who are not inclined to be active, because in
One Big Strike it promises to settle everything (not given away to
management) for good - that is, for a year. The dismal failure of one
public employees' strike after another that has had a labor contract as
its aim, indicates that this is an impossibility.

22 PROCESSED tPOBLD

Volume One, Number Five social service employees union (sseu) March 4-10, 1974

BEFORE HE GO CUT. ,.

1. Why isn't the legal staff of the AFL-
CIO Service Employees Interhation Union
fighting the proposed termination of cum-
ulative sick leave and Election Day holi-
days through the Courts? In 1970 after
the last city strike, Mayor Alioto ad-
mitted that the proposed deletion of
Civil Service increments, which spun
many workers Into the picket lines, was
not legally tenable as shown by a court
decision in Nevada in 1943.

2. If all city workers are asked to honor
the picket lines, why can't all city wor-
kers vote on striking?

3. Is a person not a member of a striking
union, who decides to come to work a scab?

4. If someone walks through the line, will
there be violence, or will the right of in-
dividual choice be respected?

5. Will all aspects of negotiation between
the AFL-CIO and City Management be made
public?

6. The Board of Supervisors is presently
asking each City department to cut back on
personnel by 10%. It is stated by you that
the City would be losing "potential quali-
fied employees". Are such employees of
temporary status, or are they those who
would be potentially hirable? How would
such a strike prevent layoffs or hiring?

7. Does SCIU have a strike fund? If so,
would this fund be available to all who
went out on strike?

8. How can SEIU expect non-members of SEIU
unions to honor or support their strike
when they supported and pushed through an
ordinance which would not have joint col-
lective bargaining? As the Employee Re-
lations Ordinance stands, where SEIU will
have exclusive bargaining rights, non-SEIU
unions and Independent Individuals will
have their rights of representation cur-
tailed and will not be able to negotiate
their working conditions or standards of
living. Should workers adversely affec-
ted by such an Ordinanace be expected to
support those who actively supported it?

9. Will the Municipal Railway go out in
support this year? When they did not work
In the 1970 strike, they lost four days'
pay.

These questions have been posted to the
•SEIU Joint Council with invitation for
comments. Responses will be printed in
THE RAG TIMES. Herb Weiner, xf>934

STRIKE... WHAT STRIKE?

Last Tuesday morning my supervisor
stopped by my desk.

"Do you plan to work during the^Strike?"

"What Strike?"

"Local 400 is striking because the Civil
Service Commission wants to take back Elec-
tion Day as a paid holiday."

"If I work will I get time-and-a-half?"

"No, but if you don't work you won't
get paid at all ."

"What if I get sick... for real?"

"You can't get sick when there's a strike."
Oh.

Local 96 (AFSCME) has been reminding me
for many weeks, with Kentucky Fried Chicken,
ballpoint pens, and balloons, that Collective
Eargaining Unit elections are going to have
to take place sooner or later, and they'd
really like me to vote for them. The AFL-
CIO hasn't fed me or ballooned me, but it
looks like they do intend to give me something
to remember them by: either time off the job
without pay, or the experience of crossing a
picket line for the first time in my life.

Of course, they do have a good issue: if
we don't get election day off, we may not
bother to go out and vote their boy Joe into
the Governor's Mansion. However, with the
money the city saves from strikers' salaries,
they'll be able to give us election day off,
and we will gratefully give both Joe and the
AFL-CIO our vote at their respective polls.

"Your name is on the list."

"What list?"

"The list of people who'll be allowed to
cross the picket line."

"Who's allowing me to cross the picket
line? Who gets that list?"

"Oh, I don't know. The Administration,

I guess."
Oh.

Rachel Heyman
LlioibiHty Wf!r' , 'f? ,r
SFGH

TIE GRINDSTOft

If your nose 1s close to the grindstone rough,
And you keep 1t there long enough,
In time you'll think there is no such thing
As brooks that babble and birds that stng.

These three will all your world compose —
Just you, the stone, and your silly old nose.

Submitted by Ferdinand Fabian

PROCESSED B70RLD

Fundamental to the success of the
SSEU's strategy was the publicity
they created to keep each other, and
any interested outsiders, informed
about the situation. The monthly
newspaper Dialog served as an open
forum for the exchange of ideas and
information. During most of its exis-
tence (1966-74?) its policy was to print
everything any welfare worker sent
in, completely unedited. Later la-
round 1971) The Rag Times, a weekly
8-page mimeographed news-and-
opinion sheet, was created by workers
in the Aid to Families with Dependent
Children (AFDC) section. Dialog con-
tinued to appear concurrently until
they both gradually died out around
1974.

For almost five years, a mimeo-
graphed leaflet appeared nearly every
morning on every desk though five or
more welfare office buildings. These
leaflets were created by over a
hundred different workers, both
members and non-members of SSEU,
and addressed a wide range of
subjects. Individuals would make
their grievances known to co-workers
and the administration in leaflet form,
demand action from management,
and then follow up by publicizing the

results, or lack of them, in a new
leaflet.
This technique puts management in
a difficult position. Any heavy-handed
reactions will only further the anger
and independence of the workers. On
the other hand, if they just give in to
the demands of the aggrieved worker,
other workers will be encouraged to
present their grievances and expect
immediate results. Exposed in this
way, authority loses either way.

DIRECTACTION

Equally vital to the SSEU's success
was their willingness to take imme-
diate collective action to confront
problems. One time, fifty welfare
workers left work in mid-morning and
went to a Civil Service Commission
hearing. All were reprimanded for
leaving work, but they were given the
right to send five representatives to
future Commission hearings.

The SSEU put a lot of energy into
public hearings, because of their
confidence in public dialogue/pres-
sure as a means of effecting change.
Even though participation in such

Demonstration of welfare workers organized through SSEU
outside the main San Francisco welfare office.

PROCESSED PQRIO

hearings seldom brings any signifi-
cant results, the gaining of represen-
tation did signify an assertion of
independence and self-organization
by the SSEU workers.

In another instance of direct action in
late summer 1968, twenty-one work-
ers went to the Dept. of Social
Services administrative offices to
discuss impending layoffs. Although
they received 5-10 day suspensions
for sitting in the administrative offices
for four hours, the layoffs were
rescinded.

Some months later, sixty workers
participated in a symbolic "case-
dumping" in the office of the divi-
sion's Assistant Director after a big
increase in their workload. Their
willingness to do things like this in
relatively large groups gave them
leverage against intimidated admini-
strators. It also made administrators
reluctant to challenge them through
speedups and other forms of harass-
ment.

UNION AND PARTY ATTEMPTS
TO TAKE OVER

The SSEU didn't find the welfare
administration to be its only enemy.
In early 1968, the same Local 400 of
SEIU which had earlier expelled the
welfare section dispatched a paid
organizer to recruit members. At that
time, the SSEU was growing rapidly,
making the administration uneasy.
Although the Local 400 organizer
didn't have much success with the
workers in the Dept. of Social
Services, he did manage to recruit
some members in other areas of the
welfare bureaucracy.

Also in early 1968, the Progressive
Labor Party (PLP), a maoist "van-
guard party," dispatched a small
group to the welfare department to
recruit followers. By being very active
and taking responsibility for the
newspaper, the PLPers managed to
get editorial control over the workers'

Dialog, and in short order began
printing a barrage of pro- 4 'collective
bargaining" articles and opinions
(i.e. in favor of affiliating with
AFL-CIO, signing a contract with the
administration, censoring the news-
paper, etc.). And, as is always the
case with Leninists, the PLP pre-
vented the publication of any ideas
that didn't fit their mold of "political
correctness."

During the summer of 1968, a bitter
fight erupted between most of the
SSEU-affiliated workers and an odd
coalition of SEIU trade unionists,
various Marxist-Leninist parties
(PLP, Socialist Workers, Commun-
ists, etc.), and Democratic/Republi-
can party hacks. The ' 'coalition' ' was in
favor of joining the AFL-CIO, engag-
ing in collective bargaining as an
exclusive bargaining agent, signing a
contract with the administration, and
eliminating the free flow of ideas by
"editing" the newspaper. After sev-
eral months, which took their toll on
the strength and active membership
of SSEU, a September 1968 vote of
the general membership repudiated
the goals of the coalition by better
than a 2-to-l margin. Soon thereafter
the PLP and its coalition partners left
the department and went to look for
other places to "organize."

In the early 70' s, the Service
Employees International Union creat-
ed a "national local" (#535) for
federally-employed welfare workers.
After some initial success at unioni-
zation in the Los Angeles area for
Local 535, SF's Local 400 gladly
turned its jurisdiction over welfare
workers to it. Local 535 recruited
some welfare workers in San Fran-
cisco, and soon began a strategy to
"build the union": a yearly ritual
strike, used by Local 535 as a way to
gain members and to establish exclu-
sive bargaining rights for itself.

SSEU members, now a dwindling
minority in the welfare bureaucracy,
found themselves in the awkward
position of being against these strikes:

PRDCE55ED (PQRLO

NO STRIKE - TAKE IT OVER!
from The Rag Times, Vol. 1, No. 5, March 4-10, 1974

The yearly morality problem is upon us again. In making a decision
not to strike one hopes not to lose friends who feel strongly that to
strike is the best tactic to improve conditions. Again I plan not to strike
yet I believe in fighting the same injustices as those who plan to strike.

I feel the yearly SEIU strike is programmed by union leaders who
currently are battling each other for membership in order to establish
more power when collective bargaining units are created. Strike in the
past ten years has replaced real organizing and become a method to
recruit members. The pattern is: Condense and exert all energy a
month or two before salary raises. City Hall anticipates the strike
action and so makes their bid impossibly low. Union leaders then
respond angrily and have a platform for the media and can speak
with outraged moral conviction. They who risk nothing set up and
control the proceedings from beginning to end. Finally the strike —
which may produce an additional one or two percent. Little precaution,
if any, is taken for people involved because it is "scheduled" to last
only a few days. The possibility it could go on indefinitely is hardly
considered...

...I feel the SEIU strike, a strike planned and negotiated by union
leaders is not progressive, but the opposite. It slows down progress.
Traditional unions work for conformism, for a mass undifferentiated
way of acting, or for precisely what we are ordered to do every day for
the city and county of San Francisco. It substitutes for real organizing
year after year.

I feel strongly there are no short-cuts to freedom of a just salary. The
amount of organizing done by every person every day and the trust
created by working things out together is the process to win a real
increase in salary. With enough worker activity, strikes would be an
obsolete tactic. The mayor and supervisors are comfortable dealing
with union representatives. They fear meeting with workers
themselves. They can deal with fellow-bureaucrats. They are afraid of
the spontaneity of individual workers when they are organized. Rather
than remain outside as in a strike, I feel it would be more effective to
control the machinery inside, not abandon it to the administrators.

Finally, I feel by striking I would reinforce a process which means I
could retire in 20 years after 20 strikes and be assured 20 miniscule
raises. But by working for change without controllers, I have hope the
administrators will one day meet such opposition as transcends even
my liveliest imagination.

— J udy Erickson, aided by Gayle Abbott

26 PROCESSED H70RLC

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PROCESSED PORLD

DISSOLUTION
AND RETROSPECTION

The SSEU slowly dissolved in the
1970 's, like other small independent
unions that grew out of the rebellious
60's. The last official SSEU meeting
was in 1976. By some accounts the
dissolution process began as early as
1970, although different workers still
pay dues to this day, and publication
continued until 1975.

The SSEU aspired to be part of a
general social movement for emanci-
pation; emancipation not just from the
real and rhetorical shackles of capi-
talism, but also from the countless

ways we have internalized our op-
pression and learned to accept our
role in a world based on hierarchy and
domination.

During its existence, the SSEU
brought about a remarkable unfolding
of different workers' creative en-
ergies. What's more, as Burt Alpert
remembers it, the experience of
actively challenging the limitations
imposed by the daily grind "brought
people out into the world," asserting
their uniqueness and desires. Rather
than seeking a ' 'unity' ' of thought and
purpose, the SSEU encouraged the
widest possible diversity, and in fact
such a diversity flowered at the time.

Air-Conditioned Nightmare

PROCESSED CTQRLC

The dialogue/confrontation tactic
went a long way toward unmasking
authority as illegitimate and unrea-
sonable. More importantly, it
strengthened people's confidence in
their own ideas and in their ability to
do things for themselves. Using a
simple typewriter and mimeograph,
the SSEU participants offered them-
selves and their co-workers the possi-
bility of putting his/her ideas out into
the public realm, further empowering
the individuals involved.

Moreover, the fact that workers were
in constant, open contact with each
other about a wide variety of subjects,
including working conditions and
problems they faced collectively, put
an enormous amount of pressure on
management. After all, if workers
were figuring out their problems for
themselves, what did they need
administrators for?

But this strategy also put pressure
on the workers themselves: to keep
the channels of communication open;
to figure out how to deal with
disagreements on tactics, strategies,
etc. ; to keep the heat on management
and figure out new ways to subvert
management control... the energy to
keep all this going came from around
200 individuals.

Their energy, in turn, came largely
from the perception that something
bigger was going on, a social move-
ment of which they were but a small
part. By challenging the oppressive
conditions of everyday life, SSEU
participants felt that their actions, in
concert with others, would lead to a
more generalized transformation of
society. Keeping up the energy
became increasingly difficult. Today,
many ex-SSEUers are (understand-
ably) burned out.

Actually, this remains one of the key
dilemmas faced by those of us who
aspire to participate in a rebellion for
a free society: How can we challenge
the immediate conditions we face,
and at the same time contribute to a
more generalized oppositional move-

ment? What are the connections
between workplace organizing and
resistance, and the larger problems of
world capitalism and authoritarian
domination? Also, how can groups of
people organize themselves in their
own interest, hang together and last,
without turning into new institutions
of power and control?

The SSEU pioneered a unique
approach to organizing in the office. It
was based, however, on the special
conditions of welfare work. Most
important among these was the
workers' perception of their jobs as
having some socially useful quality —
however ambiguous this quality may
seem in retrospect.

This is in marked distinction to office
work in CorporateOfficeLand where
the work has no relation whatsoever
to the direct satisfaction of human
needs and few pretend that it does.
The vast majority of office work done
in San Francisco or any other financial
center has to do with circulating
money or wealth-related information
around. It is difficult to imagine why
anyone would want to have more
direct control over essentially useless
work, except perhaps to put an end to
it.

Nevertheless, contemporary office
workers can learn a lot from the SSEU
experience in terms of strategy,
possibilities for creative resistance,
and obstacles that will be encountered
in any organizing effort. The impor-
tance of the individual and his/her
desires and needs can be seen in the
SSEU story as the central concern of
organizing. A new movement for
social liberation will not be created by
existing (or new) bureaucracies or
organizational imperatives. It will
have to be based on the creativity,
humor, and resourcefulness of freely
cooperating individuals. But first we
must contact each other. Isolation is
our greatest problem now.

BY LUCIUS CABINS

PROCESSED (PQRLD

By J . Gulesian — Temporary-at-Large

Thanks for PW 3, which came
wrapped in plastic, mangled by the
Postal Service machinery. It was good
to hold something made by unalien-
ated labor.

It was also good to contrast working
class fantasies with management
ones. Have you seen the TV commer-
cial for Fortune? Now, that's fantasy
— swordplay and castration (sym-
bolic, nearly subliminal) in the board
rooms of America.

The latest on the management-
workers war is that the Reagan
administration won't prosecute af-
firmative action even though discrim-
ination against minorities and others
is still illegal. Kiplinger's "Newslet-
ter" reported this in its very last issue
of 1981 with a special reminder to

note it carefully.

I spend a lot of my unbound time
reading about work. Are you familiar
with The Hidden Injuries of Class,
(Sennett & Cobb, Vintage, 1973) or
Breaktime (Lefkowitz, Hawthorne,
1979)? Both are good reference
sources about attitudes towards work.
I'm still trying to understand why I
can't look for a permanent job and
how I can live without one. Am I in the
front or the rear of a social movement,
and does it matter? Is the game life,
or is life the game?

The management trainees here
decorate their cubicles with all kinds
of anti-management paper. Nothing
strange about that except that the
manager has noticed and commented
in a memo. "Directories, 'to-do' lists

PROCESSED (PQRIC

and cartoons are wallpapered on
every vertical staff surface. I find it
painful to sign the monthly rent check
for this building when I see what our
working quarters look like. Since we
all spend so many of our waking hours
in this building, wouldn't it make
sense to take a few minutes to make
the overall appearance a little more
attractive?" It's now two months later
and the look of the vertical staff
surfaces hasn't changed. One exam-
ple in my line of vision: a Xeroxed
cartoon with 2-inch lettering reading
"They can't fire me! Slaves have to
be sold!" Actually, slaves don't have
to be sold; they can be discarded.
The welfare lines are full of them.
This morning these vertical staff
surface paperers were showing off the
afterwork clothes they'd wear to a
punk rock concert. The most conserv-

ative had the most outre costume,
which he claimed was absolutely
unique — a pair of chef's pants.

Fashion fascism is the rule here.
There's certainly no punk style from
8:30-5. The women in management
are dressing for success; secretaries
wear pants and success knock-off s;
plantation workers labor in polyester.
My fantasy today is that there are
giant petri dishes on the 39th floor
cloning thousands more of these
workers. Will the new ones take
better care of their vertical staff
surfaces?

Call me Mister Kurtz.

Although this job is full of the usual
disadvantages, it does offer the
chance to expropriate from the expro-
priators in a modest way. Whether or

i <T*

I've worked so hard to get to where I
am today. And yet. . . I feel so empty. ' '

PROCESSED H7QRLI]

Temporary Clerical

Work blitzkriegs the morning
10:05. The shelling subsides
to a shock of stillness:
hum of the copier,
steam rising from the cup.

- Steinberg -

PROCESSED tPQRLD

not I can actually become involved in
pushing the advantages of carcin-
ogens in drinking water is a real
challenge.

Interesting conversation now about
conditions at the PG&E building —
workers complaining about airborne
particles and "dust" on office win-
dows, dry eyes making wearing
contact lenses uncomfortable, etc.,
etc. Management maintains the vents
have been "turned off." Messenger
expresses reluctance to return to
PG&E, even though he's been told his
"nervous condition" is responsible
for his fears. What's going on here?

This place sells soft drinks to the
Third World (it's a source of sterile
water, I hear) and lots of other stuff

like candy bars and carcinogens. I
think you can understand my struggle
with ethics. Is this an alternative to
being a vent person (def.: derelict
who finds a place on the sidewalk near
or on an exhaust vent, esp. in winter)?
Because that's how it looks to me. If
I'm too squeamish or exquisite to
swallow the corporate dose of cyni-
cism, then what's left for me — the
sheltering arms of the streets. But I
digress, and there are miles of
multiple copies before I sleep.

*** * *

Peasants of the global village unite!
You have everything to lose if you lose
cont'd, on page 36

Levi Sirjusb & Co Two E"mbar< ,idco Center San Francisco California 94106 Phone 415 544-6000

ya y s f

SPECIAL TRAINING MEMO

FROM: The Management

TO: All Employees

DATE: March 10, 1982

SUBJECT: SPECIAL HIGH INTENSITY TRAINING PROGRAM

In order to assure that we retain technological leadership in
the industry, it is our policy to keep all employees well
trained. Through our Special High Intensity Training
(S.H.I.T.) program, we are giving our employees more S.H.I.T.
than any other company in the Bay Area.

If you feel you do not receive your share of S.H.I.T. on the
job, please see your supervisor or manager. You will be placed
at the top of the S.H.I.T. list for special attention. All of
our Department Heads, Managers, Supervisors, etc., are particu-
larly qualified to see that you get all of the S.H.I.T. you can
handle at your own speed.

If you have any further questions, please contact the Head of
Training, Special High Intensity Training (H.O.T. S.H.I.T.) .

PROTEASED PQRLO

Northsialf

advantage]

rai w rim

war OTHER r

P HW>fF y0£j>\

We'd like to show you how it's done.

Yes, we'd like to show you how millions of
hours of human life are taken up by the
endless movement of useless information.
Whether it's data center workers, file clerks,
keypunch operators, or those employed in
the construction and maintenance of office
buildings, they are all "making a living"
doing things that have no relationship to
human well-being. If you would like to
experience this emptiness first hand, just
get a job in any Financial District.

your senses. Break the hypnotic
trance induced by hours of office
drudgery. Look, listen, touch, taste,
and smell. Thinking naturally follows.
Start with something simple.

For instance, buttons and button-
holes. Ever noticed that the. more
buttons on someone's clothes, the
more power and influence, and the
less socially useful the wearer? The
six-button vest, three-button suit
coat, six- or eight-button coat cuffs,

button-down shirt collar equal a real
heavyweight in the zona monetaria.
Less obvious and much less frequent
are the button fly of the $1200 +
custom-made suit and the two-button
shorts (underwear).

In the fashion fascism game the
scoring goes something like this: no
points for zippered polyester jump
suits (or aberrations like snap fasten-
ers posing as buttons — a real button
means a button hole or close approx-

PROCESSED PQRLD

imation, preferably hand sewn); good
points to old-style international dip-
lomats, mostly for double-breasted
coats and European handtailoring;
good points, too, to high-ranking
Mafia members; winning score for
vestments, especially the Pope's
(note number of buttons on chasuble,
everything hand sewn in gold or silk
thread — the tops).

Question: If (against all odds)
computer work stations do increase
managerial productivity, will costume
reflect this change in efficiency? The
five-button vest is becoming more
commonplace, probably due to cost-
cutting by clothing manufacturers.
However, the longstanding tradition
of leaving the bottom buttonhole open
is disappearing. Brooks Brothers still
sells only six-button vests. Any other
questions?

And more.

The attack on the national language
has not been accompanied by de-
mands for the right to wear native
costume. In fact this costume is
swiftly abandoned as the push for bi-
lingualism accelerates. The clothing
adopted — double-knit pants, de-
signer-branded knock-offs and plastic
shoes — is that of the only socially
useful class. Most striking is the
unisexual character of this costume.
Those of middle age in the American
working class expressed the most
outrage at the cross-sexual dressing
of the hippies. However, this group is
the only one that made the firm
commitment to pastel double-knit
leisure suits in the seventies and is
now slouching towards five-button
vests. Former and crypto-hippies
have embraced the three-piece suit,
Louis Vuitton, and dressing for suc-
cess.

Which is impossible unless you're a
hooker with an esoteric speciality.
Vuitton and Jordache, like sex, are
the great equalizers. Designer-initial-
ized clothes do attract attention, but
probably from muggers. How often is

a secretary rewarded with envious
looks of her inferiors or the approving
ones of her superiors just because she
wears Calvin Klein? And how impor-
tant is a $90,000 sable coat if you can't
have one in every color?

At a conference of the Computer
and Business Equipment Manufac-
turers Association last fall, Xerox
President David Kearns expressed
impatience that after five years,
"some of you are still wrestling with
the question of whether a word
processor is a typewriter or a com-
puter." He dismisses this titanic
struggle with the following: "I don't
think it's an important question. It
gets in the way of what really is
important, which is that these ma-
chines increase productivity dramat-
ically." No wonder there's concern
with declining productivity if five
years is spent on such questions. Of
course, Mr. Kearns isn't disinter-
ested. Besides throwing kisses at the
icon of productivity he's also a shill
for the Xerox 8010, a "personal infor-
mation" system aimed at the busi-
ness professional. The target's "be-
havioral problems" just go with the
territory. The territory in this case is
the market share an army of Willie
Lomans is trying to capture.

Nation's Business examines the
imminent evolutionary technology in
a special report (February 1982). The
tone of this report is full of a peculiar
attitude, a blend of single focus,
inevitability, and unanswered ques-
tions common to such publications.
Reading it I wondered if its subscrib-
ers might already be so tribalized that
they practice voodoo or ritual .sacri-
fice. A believer in santeria probably
invokes the name of Chango less often
than his free enterprise counterpart
calls up the word productivity.
The effect of this attitude is a hard sell
behind a smile and a handshake.

PROCESSED Q7QBLD

Managers, professionals, and execu-
tives in this instance are interchange-
able terms. However, vendors using
their own definitions divide the
market into four parts: "clericals,
who work with numbers; secretaries,
who work with words; professionals,
who work with ideas; and execu-
tives." Now we know what executives
do.

To help them do it better vendors
are using the print medium in full-
color and a catchy slogan, something
about "just pushing a button." A
similar slogan was aimed at women
during the 1950s. Then the vendors
were manufacturers of washing ma-
chines, vacuum cleaners, air condi-
tioners and other plug-in servants.
Curiously, the most resistance to
pushing buttons came from Southern
women who maintained that if any
finger pushed a button it would be a
black finger. Executives do push
buttons to summon secretaries and
subordinates and to practice other
forms of harassment. Nation's Busi-
ness believes executive fingers push-
ing the buttons of the future will mean
a redistribution of workloads.

In a particularly crass aside NB
notes that "clericals who face change
have little choice but to comply;
managers can resist change — and
often do." No examples of resistance
were given, but I have no doubt there
will be resistance. I am certain, too,
that an entire subindustry is poised to
spring forth. Led by a media blitz
which has already rolled out, this
industry will devote itself to the
adjustment of managers to the new
technology. There will be books and
TV shows focused on executive alien-
ation, seminars on technology-related
managerial stress, discovery of un-
known allergies, digital fatigue,' and
assorted "needs." The personal
computer, once an office companion,
will be transformed into a tribble.

But the hateful question "why
don't you put it in writing?" won't

disappear. I have sent many such
written things straight to the shredder
rather than to the oubliette of the
files. The new technology threatens
the form of the document but not the
corporate hierarchy. The greatest
benefit of executive work stations will
be saving time, according to a
Booz- Allen & Hamilton study. But
what will be the total effect on the
corporate structure when executives
get the same information simultan-
eously? A new dimension is intro-
duced into the paper-shuffling ritual.
What will disappear first is the
fudged answer, "the report is being
typed, reproduced, mailed."

In the meantime I am able to
remain a member of la boheme — the
temporary work force. Until the
necessary point of view develops that
will force managers to push buttons I
am the known value in the servility
quotient, to bring in the multiple
copies one at a time. I tremble at the
thought of future chores as a result of
redistributed workloads, and I know
whose time will be saved and whose
will be wasted. When the leaders talk
of peace, Brecht wrote, you may be
certain your draft notice is already in
the mai l-

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PROCESSED &7URLD

The little girl is sitting on her
father's shoulders to get a better look
at the crowd. She has never seen so
many people in one place before. But
she feels tired and restless, for night
has long since descended on the city.
Her mother whispers a few comfor-
ting words to her and speaks re-
proachfully to the father. You should
have left the child with Mrs. Farkas,
it's way past her bedtime. The father
lifts the little girl off his shoulders and
hugs her tightly. What, leave her
behind on an evening like this, she'll
remember it for the rest of her life,
Magda, I know she will. The little girl
catches sight of a drunk picking his
way uncertainly through the crowd.
Look Daddy, look at the funny man
over there, he's going to fall down.
The mother glances disapprovingly at
the drunk who is clutching a half-
empty bottle of brandy in one hand
and a stack of newspapers in the
other. Ignore him, darling, and
maybe he won't notice us. Oh come
now, Magda, he's just celebrating in
his own harmless way. The drunk
starts shouting at the top of his lungs.
October 23, 1956! Remember that

date, comrades! The eyes of all
Hungary are on us! His rhetorical
flourish brings on a fit of coughing,
which he cures by taking a huge swig
out of the bottle, much to the little
girl's amusement. The drunk waggles
his head up and down, rubs his belly,
and politely offers his bottle to the
father. Thanks a lot, brother, but you
need it more than I do. Don't want
any, eh? Well, here's to you and your
lovely wife and child, the holy family.
How about a paper, then? Not to read,
of course, you roll it up like this, touch
a match to it, and there you have it.
He holds aloft the makeshift torch.
The fires of truth consume the Party's
lies and illuminate the obscurity of the
night. Like that? I thought it up
myself when I was over in Parliament
Square this evening. Now, here I am
at the Radio building, searching for
more miracles. But you haven't heard
the best part, comrades, some of the
boys pulled down his statue, smashed
it to bits, only the boots are left.
Barely able to contain his excitement,
the father sets the little girl down and
fumbles in his pockets for some coins.
Such good news is easily worth

PROCESSED 07OALE

another bottle for you, comrade. The
mother is smiling in spite of herself. I
can't believe it, Ferenc, your dream's
come true. The little girl is jubilant as
she listens to her mother tell her that
the statue she always hated is gone
for good. Suddenly, the drunk
crouches down and grasps the little
girl by the shoulders. The mother
moves to pull her child away, but her
husband restrains her gently. He
means no harm, Magda, don't worry.
You stink, Mister. Yes, with good
honest brandy. Do I scare you? No, I
think you're funny. Well, even though
I'm a lousy drunk, I'm here tonight
for the same reasons your parents are
— to give you a real world to grow up
in. Never forget I told you that. He
lurches to his feet and drains his
bottle in one gulp. Thanks for your
kindness comrades. Remember, Oct-
ober 23, 1956! The drunk vanishes
into the crowd as the father stares
meditatively after him. Once that
statue's gone, who knows where it
will all end?

***

It is now 9:00, and Anna, who sits
four desks in front of me, hasn't come
in yet. Often, she doesn't show up
until 9:15. Today, on the way to the
coffee room, I passed by her desk,
where her CRT was flashing the
indignant message it delivered to
latecomers: 102381 STATION 557-
85E NOT SIGNED ON 0830. The unit
supervisor, Joe Grant, could obtain a
complete record of Unit 12 's employ-
ee attendance for the day simply by
touching a few keys on his office
terminal. No doubt it would be a
matter of minutes before he stormed
out of his glass-enclosed cubicle to
ask his unresponsive employees
where Anna Baron was this morning.
Although I see Anna every day, I
don't say much to her, aside from the
usual indifferent hi-how're-you-
doing's. But she has been in my
thoughts ever since I started working

here three weeks ago, when Grant
told me, watch out for the good-
looking gal four desks in front of you,
she's real bad news, morale's gone
down since she came aboard in April,
I don't want to fire her because I
believe in giving people a fair shake,
which reminds me, I've got to be
honest with you, this place is just the
first rung up the ladder for kids like
you, I know the work's not the most
exciting in the world, but the com-
pany depends on people like us, and
you'll be sure to get promoted out of
here in six months, if you do me
favors, I'll do you favors, that's how I
am, just cooperate, that's all I ask, not
much, is it?

So I can't tell Anna what I feel when
I see her trudging to her desk each
morning, when at 3:30 each afternoon
she jumps up and dances around that
desk, when she yells an epithet at the
screen after making a mistake in her
data entry. She entrances me, but I
don't know why. Maybe it's the way
she spins her swivel chair around: she
holds on to the side of her desk,
braces herself, and with a single push
of her feet whirls like a dervish,
sometimes letting go with a high-
pitched whoop. Or maybe it's her
habit of shadow-boxing with the
cathode ray tube. "Pow, pow, pow,"
she grunts and pretends to put her
clenched fist right through the screen.
Much to my discomfort — and why
should I feel that way? — I realize
that Anna brings a breeze of life into
this stale, windowless, confined of-
fice. Even the older workers, who
ordinarily would be shocked at her
apparent lack of inhibition, seem to
take her behavior in stride. Yester-
day, a woman named Mattie was
complaining of double vision, so Anna
walked over to her desk and told her
to go to the quiet room for a few
minutes and lie down. Mattie was
reluctant to do so because she was
behind on her input-card quota and
she dreaded hearing about it from
Grant. "Just rest, Mattie, I'll take

PROCESSED PORLO

Budapest, 1956

care of it." Then, to everyone's
amazement, she sat down and started
doing Mattie's work. When Mattie
returned after half an hour, Anna
asked her how she felt. "Much better
now," the older woman murmured.
' 'Good, ' ' smiled Anna, ' 'well, you can
take it easy the rest of the afternoon,
because I just finished your pile."
Mattie looked ready to cry after
hearing that, but Anna interrupted
her broken words of thanks and said,
"Hey, don't worry, Mattie, we're all
in this together, aren't we?"

I don't think I ever felt more lonely
and isolated than at that moment.
Anna was right, we were all in it
together, but as far as I was
concerned, my fellow workers were
merely a random assortment of name
plates, except for Anna. To me, she
seemed to belong to another world
entirely, where a single leap of the
imagination was enough to bridge the
distance between heaven and earth. I
tried to dispel the pang in my chest by
working faster than usual. When it
was time to go home, my surroun-

dings shimmered before my eyes as if
I had stared too long into the sun;
everything had turned into little
yellow dots on a green field. I rode
the bus home, got off, went upstairs,
threw myself on my mattress and
closed my eyes to make the dizziness
go away, and suddenly, I was asleep.

***

As the sounds of the crowd wash
over her, the little girl shivers in the
night-time cold and nestles closer to
her father. The mother is feeling
tense, because she dislikes being in
situations she cannot control. Ferenc,
answer me, what possible good does
it do to remain here? We could just as
easily go home and listen to the Prime
Minister's speech on the radio. There
are plenty of radios here already,
Magda. But what about those cops
over there, they've got guns, if
they're provoked, they'll shoot, it's
not worth it, let's go home. The father
smiles bitterly. Do you honestly think
I'm afraid of the cops? I make guns all

PROCESSED Q7QBLD

There's a place for you in
the New Information Order

day at the factory, why should it
surprise you that the police wind up
with them? Go on home if you want,
I'm staying here until the delegation
gives its report. You'll feel pretty silly
when you hear that our demands were
granted and you weren't even around
to share that moment with us. Ferenc,
you're impossible. And you're a
coward, Magda, all these years we've
talked about getting rid of the thieves
and murderers in the government,
and now that it's finally happening,
you want to run away and hide your
head under the covers. The little girl,
bored with her parents' quarreling,
begins to sing a tune that her mother
had taught her a few days before. A
few people turn to look at her and clap
their hands in encouragement. The
father extends his arms towards his
wife in a gesture of reconciliation, but
she refuses to embrace him. Come on,
Magda, at least look at our daughter,
she's got the right idea, this is a day
for singing, not for arguing. Please
stay, dearest, what good is a moment

like this if we can't live through it
together? I'm sorry, Ferenc, you're
right, I'm just nervous, but I'll get
over it. The father puts his arms
around his wife and both of them
listen proudly to their daughter's
song.

***

The door behind me opens, and
before I know it, Anna has rushed
past me to her desk. After removing
her coat and draping it over her chair,
she stretches herself, glances ner-
vously towards Grant's office, and
signs on to the terminal. As if on cue,
Joe Grant stamps out to yell at her,
but he is brought up short when he
sees that Anna is dressed more
strikingly than her custom, in a black
blouse and black pants, with a rose m
her hair. Grant's voice soften into a
peculiar unctuous croon. "Well, An-
na, you're looking very nice today.
What's the occasion?"

Her shoulders stiffen. "Thanks,

PROCESSED BTDBLD

nothing special, just felt like changing
the image today, you know."

Realizing that his compliment has
had no effect on her, Grant changes
his attitude and mutters through
clenched teeth, "Well, I didn't come
out here to discuss fashion, Anna.
Could you please come into my
office?"

She tries to make a joke out of the
situation by running her fingers
coquettishly through her hair. "You
can't trap me that easily, Mister
Grant, I'm an honest woman." Grant
blushes, and a ripple of laughter
courses through the room at this
incongruous sight. "Seriously, Mister
Grant, I have nothing to hide. Why
don't you say what you have to say
right here and now, in front of
witnesses?"

Everyone in the office has stopped
working and watches in intent expec-
tation of a new topic of lunch-hour
conversation. "Look, Anna, I've been
telling you for two months straight,
either come to work on time or don't
come at all. We're running an office
here, not a playpen. ' ' Infuriated at his
condescension, Anna jumps up and
walks straight over to him. "Mister
Grant," she says with exaggerated
politeness, "what counts is that my
work's as accurate as it's always
been, so with that in mind, I'd
appreciate it if you got off my back,
'cause believe me, I've got enough
problems without you adding to
them."

With that, she turns on her heel
and strides angrily out of the office.
Grant is standing there open-
mouthed, scratching his head. "O-
kay, get back to work, everybody," he
mumbles, "you've had your free
entertainment for today."

Before Grant can go back into his
cubicle, the man who sits behind me
decides to intervene. "Uh, Mister
Grant, I know you probably couldn't
care less about this, but for the past
couple of months, Anna's had to raise
her daughter all by herself. She takes

the kid to school every morning and
then rides clear across town to get to
work. Nobody cares that she gets in
late, except you, maybe you should
ease up on her."

A woman sitting across the room
nods her head in agreement. "Yeah,
Mister Grant, Anna's okay, we all like
her, you don't help things by yelling
at her. Can't you work something out
with her? I've got an eight-year-old,
I know how difficult it can be."

Grant is astonished at such te-
merity, the more so as everybody is
saying yes, Mister Grant, Eddie's
right. His business-like exterior
crumbles briefly and he shouts at the
man behind me, "You can't fool me,
Thornton, I know you and your little
friend Anna are trying to stir my
people up against me. Don't think I
don't know who stuck that leaflet up
in the Johns a few days ago. Fight
unfair work quotas, what a laugh.
Well, I got news for all of you. I just
got a memo from Davis saying that
Unit 12 's going to have to increase its
productivity by 10%, effective Nov-
ember 1, the monthly stats aren't
good enough, So you won't be able to
goof off, come in late, or anything,
I'm letting you know this ahead of
time so you can be prepared."

He slams his cubicle door. It is
customary for such outbursts to be
followed by the monotonous clacking
of keyboards, but this time I hear the
buzzing of human voices instead.
How do you like that, a real live
speed-up. They're crazy, it's all I can
do to make my quota every day. All
they care about is their goddam input
cards. What about Grant, he's really
got the rag on today, he oughta get
his ass kicked. It's big enough for all
of us to kick.

At this last remark, I begin laugh-
ing uncontrollably. The voices around
me fall silent and someone taps me on
the shoulder. It is the man who sits
behind me, and since I've never said a
word to him before, I wonder what he
could possibly want.

PRQrESSEC H70RID

"Hey, 'scuse me, man, I couldn't
help hearing you laugh. I never heard
an Entry do that before, that's strictly
an Exit trick. Entries don't laugh, you
know, they're too busy working for
their brighter tomorrows. Not me, I'm
so bad off here I find everything
funny. By way, my name's Eddie,
how 're you doing?" He holds up a
name plate to his chest and assumes
the scowl of a convicted felon posing
for a mug shot. I shake hands with
him and tell him my name, and as an
afterthought ask him what all of that
entry-and-exit business meant.

"It's like this. Grant introduced you
the first day you came here. That
means he's looking to you to play the
game well so you can get a better
position in another section. We call
people like you Entries, 'cause the
company doors are wide open for
them. Me, I'm an Exit, nowhere to go
but oh-you-tee, onto the pavement,
with nothing but a personnel file full
of disciplinary memos for them to
remember me by. Unit 12 is the
bottom of the dungheap, and Grant's
the head beetle in it. And you
probably know all that, but you'll
never say anything. Entries don't like
to talk, unless it's to other Entries,
and they don't generally like to see
anything, unless it's on a CRT."

He has reminded me of the
loneliness and misery I felt yesterday
afternoon. "You're not being fair,
what do you expect, I've only been
here three weeks."

"Three weeks, three days, three
months — who cares? You got eyes,
you got ears, why don't you use them
so you don't miss the important
things? At least you sure noticed
Anna — every time she comes in
here, I notice you looking at her
funny. ' ' Before I can raise my hand in
protest, he hurries on. "Look, I don't
mean for you to feel stupid about that.
Anna's got a way about her that
people pick up on. I know how that is,
'cause she's a friend of mine. We're
trying to get a duet act together. She

sings, I play the saxophone, and
we're getting better every day. You
gotta hear us do God Bless the Child,
haven't heard anything like it since
Lady Day. In all modesty. Hey look, I
gotta take care of some of these cards,
why don't we talk about this over
lunch? Noon sound okay?"

I don't like his arrogant attitude.
My first instinct is to decline his
invitation, but I am afraid of what he
might say if I do. Besides, he could
tell me more about Anna. After a
minute of hesitation, I nod my head,
adding sarcastically, "if your friends
won't disown you when they see you
having lunch with an Entry."

Out of temper, I swivel my chair
around to my desk, where the stack of
input cards reminds me that I am
much further behind in my work than
usual. I remove the top card, check
boxes 1 and 2 to make sure they are
completely filled in, no abbreviations,
reconcile the figures in boxes 3
through 6, and transfer them to the
appropriate locations on the screen.
Anna has returned and is singing
wordlessly to herself, tapping the side
of her CRT with a pencil. I wonder
whether people can be read like input
cards. Lost in thought, I peer into the
screen and see my face reflected on
the eternal green field.

*♦*

The little girl no longer feels tired.
Her mother is disturbed at the
strange, wild glint in her daughter's
eyes. You shouldn't get so excited,
honey, it'll make you ill. The crowd's
mood has changed since the Prime
Minister's speech was broadcast, and
all kinds of rumors are swirling
through the air. The AVO's got its
orders to fire on the crowd. They took
the delegation down to the basement
of the radio building and shot them.
No, I heard that the delegates already
gave their report and it didn't go over
too well. There's talk of storming the
building, do you hear up there, it

PROCESSED CPQftlD

sounds like they're smashing the
windows already. Who does Gero
think he's fooling, so we're counter-
revolutionaries in the pay of inter-
national fascism, what about this Nazi
bullet I've still got in my leg, I'll ram
it down that liar's throat. Let's go in
there and burn the whole mess to the
ground, we're all delegates here,
aren't we? The father is shifting
nervously from one foot to the other,
craning his neck to see over the
crowd. I have to find out what's
happening, Magda, please wait here,
I won't be more than a few minutes.
Take me with you, Daddy. Are you
sure about that, princess? Yes, I want
to go with you. Please! Well, all right,
darling, but you have to promise to
behave yourself. No, Ferenc. What? I
said no, you're not taking her, she's
staying here with me, she could get
killed, I shouldn't even let you go, but
you're too stubborn. Mommy, I want
to go with Daddy! No, is that clear,
no! I gave in to you earlier, Ferenc,
allow me this much and let the little
one stay with me. All right, Magda, if
you say so, I don't want to make a
scene about it. The little girl has
started to cry. As he turns to leave,
the father remembers something and
reaches into his coat pocket. Don't
cry, darling, here's a little present
because you've been so good tonight.
He ceremoniously presents his
daughter with a single rosebud. This
flower has a story to tell you. It was
born today. It is the spirit of all our
friends here in the streets, of your
mother and myself, and of you, of

The Beginning of the End

course. It hasn't blossomed yet, as
you can see. But if you take care of it,
tomorrow you will have your very own
flower. When it fades, it will pass into
your heart, where you will guard it
closely. Nobody will be able to take it
away from you, just as nobody will be
able to take this day away from us,
come what may. The little girl kisses
her father, and the mother taps him
playfully on the chest. Tell me now,
what's a good-for-nothing munitions
worker like you speaking so poetically
for, you never talked that way when
you were courting me. Strange things
happen in strange times like these,
my love, anyway, I promise I'll be
right back. Be careful, Ferenc, I do
love you, you know. And I love you,
Magda. Could you do the little one a
favor before I come back, give her
nose a good wiping, snot doesn't go
too well with roses.

***

Before we leave for lunch, Eddie
tells me that he needs to speak with
Anna about something and would I
mind meeting her? He is looking at
me slyly and I pretend indifference,
saying sure, go ahead. We walk over
to her desk; she is staring dreamily off
into space. Eddie tiptoes directly
behind her and abruptly grabs her
shoulders, growling in his best Joe
Grant imitation, "Back to work,
chump!" Startled, she emits a high-
pitched yelp, and when she sees
Eddie laughing silently at her, she
snorts, "Asshole." The affectionate

PROCESSED BTORLO

twinkle in her eyes belies the insult.
"So what are you bugging me about
now, Mister T? Boy trouble again?
Take my advice, ditch the sucker and
take a vow of chastity."

Now it is Eddie's turn to be
embarassed, much to my satisfaction.
"Anna, speak a little louder so the
whole building can hear about my
business."

"Huh, who around here doesn't
know your business? Speaking of
business, are we still on for our
rehearsal this evening?"

"We sure are. We can use the
studio starting at 7, I checked with
Lenvil and he said it's okay."

"Listen, do you mind if I bring
Magda there?"

Eddie looks surprised. "Your
daughter? Well, I don't know, Lenvil
might freak out if he sees a little kid
running around the studio, why can't
you hire a sitter or something?"

"Eddie, when I was Magda' s age
my parents took me everywhere. I
want to give my daughter that
opportunity too. She's really good
about not getting in the way, she
loves to hear me sing, I'll be
responsible for her if she creates
problems, but I can guarantee you
that she won't."

"Well, okay I guess. Oh Anna," he

adds, "I want to introduce you to one

of your devoted admirers." She

seems highly amused at my lack of

ease, and exclaims with a touch of

malice, ' 'Imagine an Entry wanting to

meet me. At least I'm dressed for the

occasion. I never forget a name-plate,

you're the Keystroke Champion of the

Week, aren't you? If I talk to you long

enough, some of your efficiency might

rub off on me, and Joe Grant wouldn't

yell at me any more." She heaves a

melodramatic sigh, but when she read

the hurt on my face, she touches my

hand gently, as if to make amends for

her caustic words. "Sorry. I just find

it hard to imagine that anyone here

can go ahead and do their job as if

they're blind to what's going on.

Didn't you read the leaflet that came
out?" I tell her I did. "Well, take it
seriously, then, 'cause that's what
we're all up against. Why is it that
when people have their own little
worlds, they're in such a hurry to lock
themselves up in them and throw
away the key?" She blithely changes
the subject before I can answer her.
"Well, if you guys can hold on for a
second, I'll escort you to the hallway.
Nature calls."

She opens her desk drawer and
takes out her purse. Striking a his-
trionic pose before the CRT, she
brandishes her purse ferociously and
screeches, "Insult a lady, would you?
Take that, you beast!" The purse
crashes against the top of the CRT,
and with a hearty laugh, Anna grabs
Eddie's arm and propels him out the
door.

The sight of them hugging each
other when I catch up with them in the
hallway makes me feel out of place.
Nevertheless, I try to make small talk
by asking Anna where she comes
from. "I was born in Hungary, my
real name is Barontzay, but when my
mother and I came to this country, we
shortened it to Baron so the Ameri-
cans wouldn't throw fits trying to
pronounce or spell it."

"Was that a long time ago?"
"A while back," she responds
curtly. For the first time, I look
directly at her: curly shoulder-length
brown hair, green eyes, small stature,
but also a presence that breathes
intensity. She doesn't occupy space so
much as grasp it firmly. She conjures
up a vision of something distant and
remote; strange that someone with
such earthy allure should evoke such
misty associations. I interrupt my
train of thought by blurting out,
"Today's an important day for you,

then."

Her head jerks back slightly.
"What do you mean by that?"

"Oh... uh... I saw something in
today's paper that said it was the 25th
anniversary of the Hungarian Revo-

PROCESSED H70RLC

lution." Her hand caresses her face
aimlessly, nervously. "So it's... an
important day, not just for you, but
for your country." My voice trails off
when I see that she is not listening to
me. Her gaze seems fixed somewhere
on the ceiling, but she pulls herself
together and says, "Yeah, an impor-
tant day. Well, see you guys later, I'm
off to the library."

While we are riding down to the
cafeteria, Eddie asks me what all that
was about. I tell him it has something
to do with a dream, and he nods his
head. "Strange things, dreams. But
what would we do without them?"

"I don't know." For some reason, I
am feeling euphoric. ' 'I guess we'd all
become Entries, or something."

"Ain't it the truth." Then, to the
astonishment of the other elevator
passengers, we look at each other and
start laughing uproariously.

***

The little girl is plotting the best
way to distract her mother's attention
so that she can dash into the crowd
and look for her father. But she sees
that her mother is daydreaming, so
she figures that perhaps it would be
best to tiptoe away quietly. Daddy will
laugh so much when he hears what I
did. While the little girl counts to ten
under her breath, the mother worries
about how late it is, why hasn't
Ferenc come back, if they shoot, the
dream's over, nothing, no matter how
beautiful, is worth the loss of a human
life. Eight, nine, ten, catch me if you

can, the crowd surges forward and the
little girl vanishes. The mother almost
loses her balance in the crush and she
reaches out instinctively for her
daughter, only to realize that the little
girl is gone. She plunges into the
crowd, frantically calling her daugh-
ter's name, and almost immediately
she stumbles upon a young man
holding a shrieking child in his arms.
Thank God you're safe. So this is your
daughter, eh? What a pair of lungs
she's got, so young and already a
menace to the state. It's a good thing I
saw her when I did, she could have
been trampled. Thank you so much,
comrade, and God bless you. The
mother is too relieved to punish her
daughter. I don't know what's gotten
into you today, you're not like this
usually, now stop squalling and stay
close beside me. The little girl feels
another scream welling up in her. She
takes a deep breath — and then the
loud crackle of machine-gun fire

resounds from the radio building,
jagged beams of light punctuate the
darkness, an electric shock zigzags
through the crowd, and suddenly
everyone is running, colliding, tram-
pling, screaming, bastards, they're
slaughtering us, kill the cops. The
little girl clutches at her mother's
coat, trembling with fear. Magda,
Magda! The mother hears her name
being called. I'm over here! Here!
Who is it? Then she sees her next-
door neighbor staggering towards
them, blood dripping from his leg.
Magda, get out of here, both of you,

PROCESSED PQftLD

don't ask questions, just get out.
Have you gone crazy, Janos, I can't
leave without Ferenc, he said he'd be
back any minute. Janos is swaying
uncertainly, his face a bloodless
mask, the words pouring out of him
with the speed of delirium. Magda,
listen to me, Ferenc 's been shot, one
of those AVO bastards did it, he was
two feet away from me, it took him
forever to fall, I can't forget the look

How to Survive in Business
Without Really Crying

Monday morning I get out of bed,
Take a shower and put on my head.
Once I've done that, I put on my face.
I'm getting ready for life in today 's
marketplace.

My office, you know, is a civilized place

And, if I must go there, I'll do so with

grace,

Not like a prisoner, rattling my cage,

Not like a savage, shaking with rage.

It all goes so well when I start the day

right.

I can keep it together 'till I go home at

night.

How long can I go without falling apart?

Or getting a blood-clot lodged in my

heart?

Asking such questions makes me shaky

inside.

So, having paid for my ticket, let me just

take my ride.

I really do love it, so I'll try to relax

And always remember to cover my

tracks.

That 's a part of my life that the world

must not see.

It will only accept a respectable me.

Fran Now

in his eyes, I've got to get to the
factory, tell the boys on the nightshift,
we disarmed the guards, but we need
more weapons to deal with the rest.
For God's sake, Magda, leave this
place before they kill you too. The
mother is rooted to the ground and
her lips move inaudibly, perhaps in
prayer, perhaps in a curse. The little
girl feels the sudden rigidity of her
mother's body and confusedly won-
ders if it has something to do with
Daddy, and if Uncle Janos is to blame
for it. She marches up to the wounded
man, who is leaning on her mother's
shoulder, and tries to push him away.
I hate you! What did you do to my
daddy! I want my daddy! Where is
he? With frightful speed, the mo-
ther's hand shoots from her side and
strikes the little girl a violent blow in
the face. How dare you say that, you
little brat! Magda, for God's sake, the
child doesn't know what's going on.
All right then, Janos, I'll tell her
myself. Your father's dead. And those
pigs killed him. Do you understand?
Or do I have to hit you again to get it
through your head? The little girl has
started to run, her ears ringing from
the shock and pain of the blow, her
heart breaking from the horrible tone
of her mother's voice, she trips, falls,
and her mother snatches her up,
sobbing desperately. I don't want
them to kill you too, my little darling,
you're all I have left, I love you so
much, I was crazy, my poor love,
forgive me, Ferenc. The mother is
weeping now, and as the hot tears fall
on her head, the little girl grips the
flower that her father gave her until
the thorn pierces her finger and drops
of blood stain the pavement.

*♦*

Eddie and I are strolling down the
hallway towards the office, unper-
turbed at our 90-minute lunch break
and even less concerned about incur-
ring Joe Grant's wrath. But when we
finally throw open the door, we glance

PROCESSED [FUPiLD

cautiously at Grant's cubicle to see if
he has spotted us. To our surprise,
Anna is in there talking to Grant. Her
irate expression and violent gestures
tell us that the two of them are
arguing about something. Suddenly,
the cubicle door flies open and bangs
against the wall, causing the flimsy
construction to vibrate, and Anna
storms out, shouting that she was
leaving no matter what Grant said,
because her daughter needed her.
She rushes over to her desk to grab

weakness. "Her teacher said she had
a nightmare during nap period, she
woke up screaming 'They killed him,
they killed him,' she's running a
fever, the teacher sounded so wor-
ried, but this bastard wouldn't care if
she died."

Grant is probably wishing that
Anna were a fly so that he could
carelessly brush her away and have
done with her. "Miss Baron, I'm sure
your kid's got nothing serious —
nothing that the school nurse can't

her purse, but Grant is right behind
her to bark in his best parade-ground
manner, "Take one step out that
door, Anna, and you're fired."

Stupefied, Anna freezes in her
tracks and retreats to her desk. Grant,
eagerly pressing his advantage,
spreads his arms and addresses the
office, "You can see for yourselves
how much trouble this gal causes.
And I've about had all I can take from
her. No matter how patient I am, she
insults me and tries to turn my troops
against me. Now, when she comes
and asks me for a favor, I tell her no,
and can you blame me? I got rights,
too, Miss Baron. If you tried to see
things my way for once, you'd
understand. As far as I'm concerned,
the matter's closed."

Anna is keeping her head lowered
so she doesn't have to look at Grant,
and exclaims in a barely audible hiss,
"My daughter's sick, and that ass-
hole won't let me go to see her, even
though he heard her crying over the
phone." Her voice quavers, but she
is determined not to show any

handle, anyway. You can do what you
want after five, but until then, you've
got a job to do."

He slams shut his cubicle door and
sits down at his desk with his back to
us. A silence follows that would be
deafening were it not for the incessant
humming of the computer equipment.
Anna is rummaging aimlessly
through her desk as if in a trance,
muttering something that sounds like
"It had to be today." For lack of
anything better to do, everyone
gradually returns to work, and the
fugal build-up of keyboard sound
galvanizes Anna into action. She
grabs her coat and purse and walks
over to Eddie. "Listen, babe, I made
up my mind, I'm gonna call his bluff.
Maybe he won't know I'm gone, I've
just got to see Magda, there's a lot I
have to tell her, I know why she feels
the way she does."

Eddie is tense and worried. "Anna,
he's bound to notice it if you leave.
He's gonna fire you, I don't think he's
bullshitting, he wants any excuse to get
rid of the troublemakers in this unit so

PROCESSED tfQKLE

that when these quotas go into effect,
everyone here '11 be too scared to fight
them." "Eddie, I don't care if he
fires me. Do you want to know why?"
There is a note of urgency in her
voice. "'Cause I trust you to do the
right thing if he does. All this time
we've talked about what to do if Grant
puts the screws on, and now that it's
happening, we have to think in terms
of miracles. Today especially." She
turns to me when she notices that I
am listening attentively. "Earlier,
you said today was an important day
for me, but you couldn't have known
how important it really was. You see,
I was in Budapest when the revolution
began, outside the radio building with
my parents. My father was killed when
the security police fired into the
crowd. I never told anyone about this,
I kept it a secret all my life. I was only
five when it happened, and it hurt me
very much." She passes her hand
over her eyes. "That's why Magda's
sick, it's her way of telling me that
she knows about the grief I've been
carrying inside me all these years, she
must have second sight, intuition,
whatever, this morning she asked me,
mommy, why is that rose in your hair,
and I couldn't say that it was how I
wanted to remember my father and
the dream he died for. I don't know
why I'm going on like this, I must be
more upset than I thought."

don't know what's coming up, but I'll
do my best when it does."

Anna checks Grant's cubicle to
make sure that his back is still turned,
takes a deep breath, and says, "It's
now or never. Too bad it had to turn
out this way, but it's wonderful to
have your support. With people like
you around, I'm beginning to think
maybe my father's dreams weren't so
crazy after all. Please call me later on,
Eddie, and tell me what happened."

"Don't worry," I say, "the main
thing is that you have a right to see
your daughter because it's an emer-
gency, and Grant can't stop you, he'll
have to fire all of us."

"Well, people are the least of his
worries, he might just do that. I really
gotta go, bye, and thanks a lot,
really."

She is gone, but the scent of her
rose lingers in the air as if to remind
us that even in this office, marvelous
things can happen. My chest con-
tracts and my hands start to tremble,
whether from excitement or fear I am
not sure. Grant hasn't budged for
almost half an hour, maybe he won't
turn around for the rest of the day.
But with three hours left, he'll be sure
to think of something to tell his
employees sooner or later. Here it
comes, he's swiveling his chair a-
round, he's stunned when he spots
Anna's empty desk and realizes that

"How about going on strike?" I decide to be
bold; how else can miracles happen?

Eddie reaches forward and tenderly
grasps Anna's hand. "Go and see
your daughter, Anna. If Grant fires
you, there's a good chance nobody
here will put up with it. A lot of folks
here care for you, you should have
heard them this morning, they de-
fended you in front of Grant, we have
to count on that happening again. It's
like when we improvise together, I

she actually disobeyed him, he's in
such hurry to get up that he bangs his
knee on the desk, but he hobbles out
nonetheless, and instead of launching
into a tirade, he merely says, "So she
left after all, well, she made her
choice, now I'm gonna make mine."
He re-enters his cubicle, and taking
care to rub his bruised knee tenderly,
he puts his feet on the desk and picks

PROCESSED PDRLD

EVEWot*£ WAS &rr\
Goes* ruLseuT

Too'.

t bff\Ct W.«.WE

up the telephone. He must be telling
Personnel to prepare Anna's dismis-
sal papers. Everyone in the office is
watching him closely. He hangs up
the receiver and moves his chair over
to the file cabinet, from which he
extracts a manila folder, Anna's
personnel record, no doubt. He's
really going through with it, he
doesn't seem to care, it's all in a day's
work for him, so it's pointless to be
surprised or shocked when once
again, he limps out of his cubicle to
announce off-handedly that he's got
some business to take care of in
Personnel, troops, and he'll return in
half an hour.

But all hell breaks loose once the
door has safely closed behind him,
and now I understand that my fellow
workers needed Anna's presence as
much as I did. Poor Anna, this place
won't be the same without her, she
always helped me with my work,
Grant was threatened by her, he hates
women, he'd be happier if we were all
robots, I can't believe he actually
fired her, where 's the justice, it could
be any one of us, nobody here likes
working for him, what can we do?

With the shrewdness of a born
agitator, Eddie seizes his opportunity
and leaps on top of his desk. "I just
heard the $64,000 question, what can
we do? Well, we all know what we're
up against, don't we?" He points an
imaginary microphone at the others
and assumes the satin-smooth de-
meanor of a talk-show host. "Come

on, ladies and gentlemen, surely you
can tell me. Just pretend it's lunch-
time and you're all sitting around
bad-mouthing this place like you
always do. " Mattie decides to join the
game first and, in a voice of
world-weary conviction that arouses
sympathetic laughter in a few of the
younger people, sighs, "Too many
damn cards to process." Someone
else stands up and says, "We get
paid an average $700 a month to bust
our asses, that's bullshit." Eddie
covers his ears in mock embarass-
ment, "Well Mister Howe, you got
your point across, that's for sure.
Let's hear a little more of that rough
kind of talk."

Soon, infected by Eddie's playful
mood, everybody starts trying to
outdo each other's complaints, no
windows, stale air, double vision,
migraine headaches all the time, no
telephones, no freedom of speech, no
justice, until Eddie waves his arms for
silence.

"Thank you so much, it's not often
I encounter such a wonderful audi-
ence, I love you all. But one thing's
bugging me. You all been sitting on
these gripes for so long you haven't
figured out what we can do about
them."

"How about going on strike?" I
decide to be bold; how else can
miracles happen?

"You all heard the man, sounded
like he said the magic word, s-t-r-i-k-e.
But it ain't magic unless we all want

PROCESSED (PQAlD

ARE YOU UP IN ARMS

OVER BINDER, DISC
AND TAPE FILING?

We.f^e^^

of the "information handl.ng we do «s useful only o j ^

the existing order. We are *'<* * *' s ^ and tell us about

wasteful, boring work If you are up in £rms, wn e Processed

your situation. If you have any ideas ab ^ p ^' cs / | n a ° "number of office
World is an open forum for your .deas to reach a large num^^ ^^

workers. Write to: 55 Sutter st #829

San Francisco. CA 94104

Anna is sitting on the steps of the
plaza and watching her daughter, lhe
little girl is shouting strike, strike
amidst the laughter and applause ot
the small group of picketers blocking
the building entrance. Although our
leaflets have been very well received,
with many people taking piles o
copies into the building to distribute, 1
am getting bored with handing , them
out and with the litany of hi-Umt-12 s-
on-strike-and-we-need-your-support-

thank-you. So I give my leaflets to
somebody else on the lme and watt
over to Anna. Even after a weekend Lot
strike meetings, I still feel somewhat
awkward around her, and her distant,
preoccupied greeting does nothing to
dispel this feeling. But when I notice
how pale and drawn she is, 1 say w

to make it real."

"I agree," one of the younger men
says, "if Anna can't work here,
nobody should work here."

"Nobody should work here, period,
I wouldn't wish this place on a dog."

Eddie bursts out laughing. "Mister
Howe's hit it on the nose. Why should
anyone work here? That's the kind of
question we have to ask. And if we
haven't all left our imaginations
inside those CRT's we might even
come up with some good answers.
I've said all I have to say, ladies and
gentlemen. We haven't got much
time before Grant gets back, so let's
start planning a nice surprise for

him."

***

PROCESSED Q70PiLD

myself, of course, she's been under a
lot of strain recently, what with
everything happening so fast. I sit
down beside her and try to draw her
into conversation by complimenting
her on her daughter and how nice it
was to have her with us today.

"Yeah, Magda's something else,
it's scary how much alike we are.
She's just the way I was at her age.
She loves being the center of atten-
tion, and she'll do all she can to stay
there, even if it means yelling herself
hoarse. Speaking of Magda, I heard
from her father this morning."

"Oh really?" This is the first time
Anna has mentioned her ex-husband,
as far as I can tell.

"Uh-huh, he heard about the strike
on the radio, so he called to wish me
good luck but to keep Magda out of
trouble, he knows I'd take her
anywhere. So I told him thanks for the
good wishes and he can have her next
weekend. He's a nice guy, but he
doesn't understand a lot of things,
he's too wrapped up in his job, that's
why we split up."

I change the subject. "So he heard
about us on the radio, wonder how the
news got out."

Anna gestures towards Eddie, who
is standing off to the side of the picket
line and playing a lively tune on his
saxophone. "You can thank Take-
Charge Eddie over there, he's in his
element with this strike." I ask her
what that element might be. "The
spotlight, of course. Whenever we
play duets, I'm constantly reminding
him that we're partners and he can't
always be out front. Somebody here
has to tell him that, otherwise he'll
want everything to go his way. Sorry
if I'm bumming you out or anything,
I'm really tired today, I can't get up
the right amount of righteous fervor,
there's too much on my mind."

I can tell that Anna wants to be left
alone with her thoughts, but just as I
am getting up to return to the picket
line, I hear someone calling her name.
A friend of hers who works in one of

the other units is running towards us,
and Anna brightens up immediately
when she sees her. I feel superfluous,
but since I don't want to go back and
hand out leaflets, I hover around them
to find out if Daria is bringing any
important news.

"Hey Daria, I've been waiting for
you to call me like you said you
would."

"I didn't try this weekend 'cause I
knew you were busy stirring up
trouble. I love what you guys are
doing, imagine, Unit 12 on strike,
Grant's a candidate for heart failure,
you should see him, it's fantastic."

Anna smiles ironically at her friend.
"Well if you really think so, maybe
you should get a sympathy strike
going in your unit, things can't be
that much better there."

Daria looks at the ground, shuffling
her feet back and forth. "It's not the
same where we are, Billings is an
okay boss. Anyway, we're all behind
you, we read your leaflet. Besides,"
she adds, her voice gaining as-
surance, "if it weren't for me, you
wouldn't know that the Unit 12
temporaries are all ready to quit, I
talked to one of them a few minutes
ago, he's going crazy trying to figure
out the work, everything's a total
mess." Daria glances around as if
afraid to be overheard. "Incidentally,
Anna, I heard that about 2,000 input
cards have disappeared from Unit 12,
is it true?"

"All I can say is, I wasn't there at
the time they decided to go on strike,
so you'll have to ask someone else,
not that you'll ever find out. But we
aren't playing games with this strike,
that's for sure."

"You don't have to take that tone
with me, Anna, I came to help you,
not spy on you. I'm here because I
just found out from Davis' secretary
that the company's going to use
trespassing laws to keep you folks
away from the building. I wanted to
warn all of you that you might have the
cops on your hands any minute.

PAQCES5ED (PQRlD

Y' know, since you ve
been around I've felt

more like a man than
ever before

f<J. B <>bf

«/

s °h u y ° u

' rt >*n7 n >*a e

fie

Humanizing

the interface

with electronic

systems

PROCESSED (PQRLO

Anna, are you alright?" For Anna
appears ready to faint, and only
Daria's embrace prevents her from
collapsing to the pavement. "Anna,
it's so unlike you to be afraid, what's
wrong?"

Anna's words emerge with great
effort. "It can't happen like this
again... not the police... they'll kill
us." She clutches Daria and gazes
fixedly at her. "Please Daria, help
me, help my little girl, you know
where I live, take her home, Mary
Anne in Number 8 will look out for
her, I don't want anything to happen
to her, not the way it happened to me,
she's just like me, I'm so frightened
for her."

Daria is astounded. "Sure, I guess.
...I'll think up an excuse for leaving
work... alright, I'll drive her home.
But I don't understand, the cops
won't kill you, they'll just ask you to
leave."

I pull Daria aside and whisper to
her that Anna's been through a lot
lately, and maybe it would be best for
us to tell the others about the police's
imminent arrival while Anna went to
get Magda. Daria nods understan-
ding^ and we both hurry over to the
picket line. The news produces its
expected effect on my fellow strikers,
but for some reason I cannot concen-
trate on the heated discussion that
follows. Instead, I look across the
plaza and see Anna and Magda sitting
next to each other on the steps,
talking animatedly.

It is clear from the way Magda is
behaving that she is reluctant to
leave, no matter how reasonably her
mother speaks to her; she is shaking
her head vigorously and refuses to
look directly at Anna, who loses
patience and yanks her daughter to
her feet. At this Magda goes limp.
Nothing daunted, ' her mother pro-
ceeds to drag her across the plaza,
and the little girl starts shrieking with
rage. You're hurting me, Mommy, let
go, I hate you. Anna wheels around

violently and for a moment it looks
like she is going to hit the little girl,
but she restrains herself and, to my
surprise and relief, lifts her daughter
into her arms and hugs her tightly.
After whispering a few soothing
words into Magda 's ear, Anna sets
her gently on the ground, wipes her
face, and takes hold of her hand.
Magda is smiling now, and Anna
looks as if a great weight has been
lifted from her shoulders.

"Until you've met my daughter,
you don't know what stubborn
means," says Anna when she reaches
the picket line. "Her grandfather
would have loved her, what else can I
do but let her stay here with us?
Thanks, Daria, I guess you're off the
hook now. You guys decide what to do
about the cops?"

"Nobody can agree on anything, so
we'll just wait and see what hap-
pens," Eddie says, and at that
moment the shriek of a police siren
cuts through the noise of the down-
town traffic. Two paddy wagons
careen onto the sidewalk, disgorging
thirty patrolmen in riot gear, one of
whom is carrying a bullhorn. "Hey,
Eddie," somebody says, "how about
giving the men in blue a tune to
brighten up their day." Eddie snorts
contemptuously, but when he sees
Anna and Magda talking quietly to
each other, he puts his horn to his lips
and begins to play a long, elegiac
melody, aching with loss at first but
gradually brightening towards a
hopeful mood. Anna's face clouds
over as she recognizes the tune and
suddenly she begins to sing in a low
passionate voice, Mama may have,
Papa may have, but God bless the
child who's got his own, and all I can
hear is her song, there is nothing else
in the world, not even the crackling
mechanical sound of the police ser-
geant reading the dispersal order.

— By Christopher Winks

PROCESSED H7QRLD

Willi

imimmiiiiiiiiniiiimiimimmmmmiiiiHiiinitfii:

DOVN
TlilJE!

■niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiHiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiuiiiiiii

Basic Principles of Resistance
(Bulletin #8 - Solidarity)

The following is some practical
advice for workers in any job or
country. It was published under-
ground by the Warsaw chapter of
Solidarity, dated December 30, 1981.

1. During a strike or other form of
protest, stay with your colleagues.

2. Do not establish Strike Commit-
tees. Protect your leaders and or-
ganizers. Basic principle of action:
the entire crew goes on strike —
there are no leaders.

3. In contacts with the police or the
military you are uninformed, you
know nothing, you have heard
nothing.

4. Do not denounce ordinary people.
Your enemies are: the policeman,
the eager conformist, the informer.

5. Work slowly; complain about the
mess and incompetence of your
supervisors. Shove all decisions,
even the most minor, into the lap of
commissars and informers. Flood
them with questions and doubts.
Don't do their thinking for them.
Pretend you are a moron. Do not
anticipate the decisions of com-
missars and informers with a
servile attitude. They should do all
the dirty work themselves. In this
way you create a void around them,

and by flooding them with the most
trivial matters you will cause the
military-police apparatus to come
apart at the seams.

6. Eagerly carry out even the most
idiotic orders. Do not solve prob-
lems on your own. Throw that task
onto the shoulders of commissars
and informers. Ridiculous rules are
your allies. Always remember to
help your friends and neighbors
regardless of the martial law rules.

7. If you are instructed to break
mutually contradictory rules, de-
mand written orders. Complain.
Try to prolong such games as long
as possible. Sooner or later the
commissar will want to be left in
peace. This will mark the begin-
ning of the end of the dictatorship.

8. As often as possible take sick leave
to care for an "ill" child.

9. Shun the company of informers,
conformists and their ilk.

10. Take active part in the campaign
to counter official propaganda,
spreading information about the
situation in the country and
examples of resistance.

11. Paint slogans, hang posters on
walls and distribute leaflets. Pass
on independent publications —
but be cautious.

Reprinted from the Bay Area Solidarity Support Campaign Bulletin,
March 1982, No. 1; 55 Sutter St. #832, San Francisco, CA 94104

PROCESSED PQRLD

SF Supes Bolster Sagging City Worker Unions

In early February, the San Fran-
cisco Board of Supervisors voted in
"agency shop" representation for city
workers. Many clerical workers, li-
brarians, social workers and pharma-
cists resented the imposition of
agency shop and collected signatures
from 30 % of their co-workers so they
could vote on the issue. In a
February 26th vote, city clerical
workers agreed to this representation
with 1203 voting for it and 1076
against.

"Agency shop" basically means
that "as a condition of employment"
you must pay money to the union. You
need not formally join the union, but
you must pay a monthly "service fee"
of $11 to $13. The "service fee" is a

euphemism for compulsory union
dues checkoff, which has traditionally
been relied upon by union bureau-
cracies that cannot get workers to sign
up voluntarily. Through the guaran-
teed income provided by automatic
dues, the bureaucrats become direct
beneficiaries of the wage-labor setup.
In return, these "experts" provide
the "services" of collective bargain-
ing and grievance processing to their
"clients," who are encouraged to let
the union handle all their working
problems. Prior to the ratification
election, we visited City Hall to talk
with some city workers. Although
nearly everyone we spoke to favored
the idea of union representation,
"Nobody likes the way the decision

Commute

NlCHTMUM

PROCESSED (POALD

was imposed," said an already union-
ized keypunch operator.

A few years ago SEIU 400 sent an
organizer around to get her to join the
union, the first union representative
she had met in three years. She told
him, "I'd already belong if it was a
good union."

In her opinion — one we often
heard repeated — SEIU 400 "doesn't
do anything for us." She explained
how the union had been in labor
conciliation "court" three years ago
to fight for 12 month retroactive wage
increases that the City had im-
pounded in a cost-cutting move. Local
400 lawyers immediately agreed to
accept only seven months back pay,
making no attempt to secure the
additional five. As for the union's
claims about successful collective
bargaining, she scoffed: "What did
they get us last year? 2%? And the
cost of living increased how much?
16%?

A unionized librarian had mixed
feelings. He could understand why
the union wanted the money, but he
could also understand people's resis-
tance to being "shanghaied."

One clerk who was in favor of
agency shop was asked how her
co-workers felt. "They don't want it
now; nobody wants anything in the
beginning; they don't want to pay the
money." Hired through CETA over a
year earlier, she wasn't a union
member but planned to join. She
knew nothing concrete about what the
union had done for workers in the
past.

Most likely, SF supervisors have
passed this agency shop ruling as a
political favor to union leaders. But it
also demonstrates the City govern-
ment's interest as an employer in
workforce stability. SEIU 400, the local
that stands to gain the most, has a
long record of being in cahoots with
governmental employers (see "No
Paid Officials" in this issue for more
on SEIU 400's history).

The agency shop agreement is

actually aimed at strengthening weak,
unpopular unions. For the time
being, it may succeed. Meanwhile,
though, city employees will continue
to meet with each other around the
concession stands, water coolers, and
lunch tables, trying to figure out how
to protect the limited freedom they
have — and, perhaps, how to extend
it beyond the limits enforced by union
bureaucrats, managers and politi-
cians.

Justifiable
Terminal-icide

Frankfurt, West Germany —

A judge dismissed charges of
malicious damage against an insur-
ance company bookkeeper who at-
tacked his VDT with a chair, and then
set it on fire. The dismissal came after
the bookkeeper explained his patience
had been exhausted when the system
went on the blink for the 5th time in as
many hours. The judge noted that the
bookkeeper regularly had been forced
to work long hours of overtime to
catch up on work that was delayed by

system failures.

- 1/29/82

AFL-CIO Newspaper Guild Reporter

^Oss

LOUIS fviiCxAfcLSoN

PROCESSED PDftlD

Confidence Crisis For Middle Management

Every office worker knows how
utterly useless "middle manage-
ment ' ' personnel can be, even within
the general uselessness of office
work. Now, perhaps goaded by the
threat of automation, they themselves
have begun to worry about it. The
following is quoted from a keynote
speech given at a company -wide
meeting for Directors of Administra-
tion and Personnel. The context
seems to be that many office mana-
gers at Arthur Andersen have been
treated as less important because
they are responsible for office support
rather than the more "glamorous"
management field work... Emphasis
is ours.

"... top management recognizes
that there is a 'class' distinction
problem...

First, we must recognize and
become totally convinced that admin-
istration of office operations and per-
sonnel is indeed a profession. We
must acknowledge to ourselves the
worthiness of our work, before we can
proceed any further. For many of us
that is a difficult step to take. We
desperately want to believe it...

... So we, as a group, must recog-
nize and become totally convinced
that administration is a profession in
and of itself. We must recognize that
this profession is integral to the
process of management. We do
provide meaningful service. Dr. Mor-
rison will help us in making that
recognition...

... among the suggested issues [for
discussion this afternoon] are several
points that will help to generate
additional thought about who we are,
what we do, and the appropriate roles
for us in our offices...

... Dr. Morrison will also be pre-
paring you for the task of winning
recognition of your role. Tomorrow,
he will be discussing the area of
"psychological contracts." And Fri-
day he will discuss "building your
own support." And Herb Cohen will
conclude the meeting by discussing
your personal power — how to find it
and how to use it effectively.

I want you to know that we have not
gone to this expense and effort to
simply make you feel good about
yourselves... I believe the investment
this firm is making in you to be well
worth the ultimate cost. Because I

*******************************************

***************

**%.************

PROCESSED tPQRLO

believe that the administration of
office and personal resources is very
much a part of our total client service
effort. But the investment you make
in yourselves will generate the great-
est return for both you and the firm.
(Emphasis in original)

... Historically, the firm has tended
to equate the concept of "support"
with the concept of "subordinate." It
did not recognize the mutual depen-
dence involved. It imposed a false and
unrealistic segregation between two
groups of people...

... We have established the policy
that the partnership door is indeed
open to people in administration. I
cannot guarantee that the opportunity
to partnership is as open as you would
like it to be. But the door is neither
closed nor locked...

... We intend to tighten our stan-
dards for recruiting administration
personnel and for keeping them on
the payroll. Any efforts we make in
the office to upgrade the overall
image of administration will not
succeed, unless we support those
efforts with a sound system to keep
the dead wood out...

... The most important action
[taken by the firml is that we have
now opened some minds and attitudes
to the point that you have the
opportunity to take control of your
personal destiny."

Thanks to our friends among the
office staff at Arthur Andersen & Co.
for sending this in!

th ep e e /"; //o Ve

PROCESSED PQRLO

The Craig Agency

44 Montgomery St., Wells Fargo Building, San Francisco, California 94104

MEMO

TO: ALL ASSOCIATES

FROM: BETSY

SUBJECT: RESTROOM KEY

ONCE AGAIN THE RESTROOM KEY IS MISSING. WOULD EACH ONE OF YOU TAKE TWO
MINUTES TO CHECK AROUND FOR IT. I KNOW THIS IS REAL UNIMPORTANT TO YOU
NOW, BUT SOMETIME SOON IT'S IMPORTANCE MAY CHANGE, IF YOU GET MY DRIFT.

WHEN EACH OF YOU FIRST WALKED THROUGH THE DOOR YOU WERE GIVEN A KEY TO
THE FRONT DOOR. THIS KEY WILL OPEN THE BATHROOM DOORS. IF YOU HAVE
LOST YOUR KEY, THE BUILDING WILL MAKE ANOTHER ONE FOR YOU FOR A SLIGHT
FEE, $1 I THINK. IF YOU DON'T HAVE ONE, I STRONGLY SUGGEST YOU GET ONE.
WE WILL NOT BE SUPPLYING THEM ONCE A WEEK. ALSO, IF YOUR SECRETARY
DOES NOT HAVE ONE, PERHAPS YOU WOULD LIKE TO BUY HER AN EARLY CHRISTMAS
OR HANUKKAH PRESENT.

BELIEVE ME, I FULLY REALIZE THE RIDICULOUSNESS OF THIS MEMO, BUT I HAVE
SPENT ABOUT TWO HOURS DISCUSSING THIS WITH INDIVIDUAL PEOPLE AND IT IS
BECOMING A MAJOR CRISIS IN MY LIFE. PLEASE CHECK AROUND AND LET ME KNOW
HOW MANY KEYS YOU'D LIKE TO ORDER.

HAPPY TRAILS TO YOU.

BETSY V

The Typist Addresses

Her IBM Selectric

1 »000,000 MemoryWriter 250D

Dear Sir:

Weekdays I start your heart at 8. Maybe I'll take
you to the beach some Saturday. Would you like to come
to church with me? Say yes, Please say yes!

Disappointment. I'm so used to it I can't imagine
life without it. The buses don't come when they're
supposed to, my toilet runs, last week some kids ran
my cat over on purpose and screeched off laughing-the
police lost the license number (I gave them my copy I'd
written down and then RAN to a phone booth and found the
nearest precinct and took a cab there), LOST IT! noth-
ing works, everyone's evil or incompetent, except you...

PROCESSED 070BLD

Page 2

You can take a mistake and make it disappear on the spot
quick as I can move, and I move fast, and you ve got ev-
erything in your perfect little brain somewhere under
that grainy black surface.

What a head for #s ! Will your memory fail when you
get old and all the young computers titter? Don't worry,
I won't let them. I can tell you like my humming as we
sail along, your margin bell always dings in perfect time.
We make such beautiful music together!

Just for toi (mon cher) I stayed up past midnight two
weeks straight memorizing your instruction booklet, not w
word for word of course, like you do, but I still know e-
nough to keep my lambykins happy and healthy as a paid va-
cation. I'm even considering going to night school to
learn to repair you. Then we can play doctor: tres kinky,
my magic little box of beckoning electrodes, my double-
spacing demon.

Oh, sometimes I feel so clumsy next to you and your
perfect borders. But you need me a little too. What a team
we are!/ Translating their horrid chickenscratch into such
wonderful black&white symmetry. I love to just sit there
and watch you type out a whole letter from memory. . .Once I went
out with a guy who sounded exactly like you when he walked
, I think he was a tap dancer, he bored me, but you turn
me on so much, so very very much much much.

And how you toy with mei: You know how jealous I am.
MR. POPULARITY around the office, you are; you never take
the last cup of coffee in the pot and scald the bottom,
like some people I won't mention, and the supervisor loves
you because you may break down once in a long long while
but never ewery cry, (like some other people named Marianne
Anderson who shal remain anonymousO, don't think I don't
see the way that bitch looks at you and brushes against
your carriage when she flits by..

One of these days I'm going to take you home forever,
my little pumpkin, put you on my laplap once and for all a
nd we can sit in front of the tv happilly ever after, maybe
write a letter together every once in a while, maybe, not.
I have a dimmer dial in my bedroom, and... oh I can't stand
it, quit playing with my heart you dark brute, it's almost
time for break and parting is such sweet sorrow, vur I
must or they'll talk, thsy'll talk talk talk talk talk,
my fingerxRxixxtios are on fire with a love-pink glow.

Dearest, I'm yours,

fyUU, Co^dJUt
Julie (Capalet)

PROCESSED (PORLD
62

it -

ThatOffice! Presented by Gulf of theFarallones,Inc. a
non-profit theater group; written by Melinda Mills,
directed by Karl Danskin, performed by Patricia Falvey,
Carol Loud and Lisa Brown.

That Office ! was conceived, written and performed by
and for clerical workers. Author Melinda Mills wrote the
script after a stint as a secretary, and director Karl
Danskin sought out actresses with experience in the
office world. The original intention of the company was
to perform for office workers during lunch-hours in San
Francisco and Oakland's financial districts. Afternoon
performances have been limited, however, due to bad
weather and problems finding indoor performance
space.

PROCESSED PQRLO

Given the radical content of the play,
it is not surprising that the company
received little response to requests for
performance space in office lounges
and cafeterias. Hopefully, That Of-
fice! will be played in financial district
parks come spring.
The company's attempt to involve
the audience in the performance links
them to the avant-garde project of
dissolving the separation between
spectators and performers, art and
life. A rejection of the notion of art as
a privileged sphere and artists as
stars removed from the humdrum of
daily life is implicit in the perfor-
mance. "Theatrical" conventions are
downplayed. The actors use little
make-up and mingle with the aud-
ience after the show, while set and
structure are reduced to a bare, but
effective minimum. The set — con-
sisting of a desk, chair and cardboard
imitations of a typewriter, filing
cabinet and other assorted office
furnishings — is stylized but realistic,
with the genuine look and feel of an
office. That this should be so well
conveyed by plain cardboard is an

ingenious comment on how bland and
colorless most offices are.

As in Brechtian theater, the perfor-
mance is not just entertainment or
diversion, nor is it designed to
overwhelm the viewer with spectacu-
lar effects, but rather to incite her to
critical reflection. At the same time,
and contrary to Brecht's theory, we
can readily identify with "the secre-
tary," the main character in the play.

The starkness of the play contrasts
sharply with its emotional impact.
People in the audience frequently
remarked how much the play con-
firmed their own experiences. The
petty tasks that make up the day's
routine, the bosses' crass, sexist,
infantile behavior and their grotesque
expectations of the secretary,
along with her own fantasies, self-
delusions, humiliation and despair ,
are summed up in a series of short
prose-poems which form a bitter, yet
humorous condemnation of the tragic
waste of human life-time that goes on
in "that office", i.e. any office.

Some of the most insightful mo-
ments in the play are also the most

She becomes the aggressive seductress.

PROCESSED (PQftLO

painful. For example, the secretary's
sexual fantasies expose the contra-
dictory ways that sexual tensions and
frustrations are internalized and
played out in the imagination. The
bosses, personified in Peggy's dis-
dainful descriptions and as taped
voices, are insensitive, idiotic and
immature:

Have you ever seen grown
adults — adult men — who
get paid fifty grand a year
acting like children? Well
they do! They throw tan-
trums, act silly, try to make
you laugh, demand that you
do things for them immed-
iately. It's too much! Those
men! My two always want
graham crackers and milk at
2 PM. Then they put their
heads down and take a
nap!. ..And they throw a fit if
I answer the phone "Mis-
ter ' ' instead of ' 'Doctor ' ' —
people think they have the
wrong number! And one of
them is always losing his
socks and he whines until I
look all over his office and
find them for him. How do
their wives handle them ? I
just don 't know.

Yet in her erotic fantasies,

The Woman

rubs up against the handle of the

paper cutter while she sorts the
mail,

and longs to grab the man she works for
by the balls, fuck him till he
can 't stand up, then walk back to
her desk and type up the Quarterly
Report to the Chief.

As a woman, she
tantalizes the heterosexual man.

The bureaucrat-business man

seething with
semen, like warm mayonnaise filling
the hot receptacles between his legs,
desires a woman to assist him with his
necessary duties.

At these moments the secretary
becomes the aggressive seductress,
proving herself on "their" terms.
Most audiences have come to accept
critical portrayals of sex roles and how
certain kinds of behavior are imposed
on women, but few women are willing
to own up to the darker secrets of
desire. Certain uptight people may
feel outraged and shocked by these
scenes. On the other hand, I noticed
they were also received with loud —
perhaps overloud — laughter from
some women in the audience.

The effort to confront the reality of
office life in all its emptiness {"This is
reality?'' the secretary asks herself
unbelievingly at one point) sometimes
exaggerates its coldness. The play
neglects the small complicities, the

PROCESSED PQRLD

moments of warmth and understand-
ing shared with co-workers that help
pass the time, and without which the
workday would be completely insuf-
ferable.

Not that the secretary appears
altogether dehumanized. One of the
main sources of dramatic tension in
the play comes from a sense of the
chasm that exists between the self-
less, efficient "down-to-earth" auto-
maton the secretarial role demands,
and the secretary's own (very human)
longings for tenderness and passion.

In a wonderful counterpoint scene,
the secretary muses tenderly about a
man in the office to whom she feels
attracted. Meanwhile, on the other
side of the stage, one of the "other
secretaries" (there are two of them on
stage at all times) offers a stream of
banalities, ostensibly as practical
advice to a woman questioning the
direction of her life:

It 's your choice you know

Only you can get what you want from

life

It's up to you

You're still young enough to change

careers

you could easily make

All the necessary arrangements

In another, less successful segment,
"A Woman", the vision of the
"womanly" side of the character
borders on sentimentalism:

The Woman

flowing-out

blowing-about

crowing-to-be

sewing-up

knowing-why

growing-with

In general, however, this tension
helps convey a sense of rebelliousness
which contrasts with the feeling of
resignation that pervades "Stuck,"
another play about the office world

performed at Fort Mason by the
Magic Theater in late 1981. Like That
Office!, Stuck presents familiar office
characters in a familiar setting —
4 'stuck' ' in a traffic jam on the way to
and from work. The play was innova-
tively staged in a large warehouse
with real cars. At its best, Stuck offers
a realistic picture of the hypocrisy,
emptiness and deep frustrations that
abound in the office world. But
although we can recognize the char-
acters portrayed, we do not identify
with them. It's not just that they're
unsympathetic, but rather that the
author has not gotten under their
skin, as Mills does in That Office! The
grossest example of the superficiality
of Stuck was the stereotype of a
female file clerk as a mindless
nymphomaniac, who seems neither to
want nor to deserve any better than
her lowly position in the office —
except sex.

If it weren't for the poetry and
humor of the script, and the charm of
the actress, That Office! might be a
depressing play. As it is, the subver-
sive possibilities of humor and irony
are ingeniously exploited in sections
like "The Variety of Possibilities,"
which ridicules the rhetoric of free-
dom and individual opportunity, often
used to assuage the consciences of
those who have achieved wealth and
power:

The variety of possibilities
always apparent
just within my reach

the endless variety

of possibilities

young, white and American

even being a female doesn *t

hurt my chances that much

does it?

that dreaded variety

of possibilities

how can I possibly turn down

so many opportunities?

PROCESSED P0R10

Coming from a captive in the office,
this cliche leaves a bitter taste in
one's mouth. Other choice bits are
"Hilarity" ("// I could just keep
laughing, everything would be OK)
and "Insanity." In the latter, the
three characters comically repeat
familiar phrases "Things are crazy
here. This job is making me crazy. His
wife is insanely jealous. ' ' In the
context that has been created, the
casual daily references to insanity
take on a deeper meaning. We are
made aware of the naked truth to
which daily usage of these words has
numbed us.

Unfortunately, the quality of per-
formance varied in the two shows I
saw. Nonetheless, Patricia Falvey
(who acts in the evening perfor-
mances) is a very powerful actress,
and for the most part skillfully handles
the extraordinary variety of moods in
the play. The script itself is very
demanding, as it concentrates atten-

tion on the main actress throughout
most of the play. The two supporting
actresses functioned as part of the set
during most of the performance —
repeating mimed office chores. More
interaction with the supporting act-
resses might have relieved the occa-
sionally taxing focus on the secre-
tary's monologue. The rare variations
in staging were welcome. Particularly
successful was the use of a cranky
displaying a poem against a sonic
backdrop of taped animal noises.
The best scene involving all three
actresses was the closing finale, "Am
I the Only One?", an animated dance
routine to a tune resembling "La
Bamba." The trio's obvious enjoy-
ment in this scene was contagious,
and provides an answer to the
question "Am I the Only One?" The
answer is no, and That Officers
portrayal of an individual's exper-
rience in the clerical world goes a long
way in showing us why.

— By Maxine Holz

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PROCESSED
WDRLO

A totally underground publication, Processed World
accepts no advertisements and is supported entirely by
readers' donations. Produced by a fluctuating group of
dissidents and malcontents, most of whom are working
in SF's Financial District as "information handlers,"
the magazine has been established to facilitate contact
between dissatisfied, rebellious office workers, and to
provide an outlet for critical reflections on the modern
world.

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The following people helped produce Processed World
#4. Thanks to everyone who contributed creatively or
financially to the project.

Louis Michaelson, Clayton Sheridan, Maxine Holz,
Helen Highwater, Gidget Digit, Fanya Baron, Chris
Winks, J. Gulesian, Kurt Lipschutz, Richard Laubach,
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From Frans Masereel, The Passionate Journey